The Guardian Angel Read online

  She’d named her laptop after the writer, Carrie Bradshaw, in Sex and the City. Yes, it was an Apple laptop—what else? With pink case. It was her pride and joy. Shame she’d not used it a bit more in that last year.

  I was still struggling with how you could pass the first two years and then be so badly corrupted by me that you failed the third one. “What about the exams? How did you do in those this year?” Hopefully she’d have scraped a few Bs or Cs. I’d helped her revise for her exams over the two years we’d lived together, but now I thought about it, not lately.

  “It was all coursework and self-directed study this year. No exams, Richard. None.”

  “There must be something you can do? That can’t be the final word on your final grade. What about the other two years of study? Don’t they count for anything?”

  She was in her bedroom now, throwing things into boxes. “I’ve had that conversation. Turns out years one and two together only counted for 30 percent of the final grade.”

  “How was I supposed to know that? Come on, you can redo some modules. It’ll be fine. I’ll help you.”

  “Never once did you ask me how it was going this year? You were too busy applying for your graduate training schemes and revising for exams. While you watched me self-destruct my life.”

  “I didn’t know. I had no idea. I wanted someone to come out with me to celebrate as I finished each exam. You should have said something.”

  She stopped throwing things into boxes and rested her hands on her hips. “I told Mum and Dad it was your fault. I had to blame someone. And it was your fault, at least in part. If I said it was me doing it on my own, they wouldn’t pay for me to repeat the year. This way I can blame you, and I get to do it again.”

  “So you acknowledge it wasn’t me?”

  “It was fun while it lasted, and now it’s over.” She nodded. The intercom buzzed. “That’ll be them.” She ran downstairs and let her parents in.

  I stood by my bedroom door as her dad carried her boxes to their large Volvo estate and her mum helped pack her room into more boxes. They both glared at me every time they passed my door.

  Her parents waited in the car. I looked at her empty bedroom. “What am I supposed to do for your half of the rent?”

  Jenny shrugged. “I’ve left you the Quaglino’s ashtray.”

  “Will I see you again?”

  “Doubt it.” Then she had started to shout loudly at me, accusing me of ruining her life, how I’d led her astray, that she couldn’t believe how much of a waster I was, and that it had infected her.

  I just stood there as she bellowed at me, directing her voice down the stairs to the Volvo estate. As she finished, she shrugged her shoulders and left.

  Since then I’d been quite reluctant to get another flatmate. After a while I’d got used to living alone and enjoyed the extra space. The landlord had asked if I wanted to buy it, because he needed the money straight away and couldn’t hang around to do it up, and he offered it to me for not quite a song, but maybe the first few songs on an album. Although in Tufnell Park, I was relieved it was an ex-local authority block on a main thoroughfare in the “N7 Holloway, untrendily far from Hampstead Heath” postcode bit, or it would have cost telephone numbers. But this little wrong bit of the right area of north London was soon mine. I was surprised to find the mortgage was about the same as the rent had been. A form-filling session followed, with a mortgage advisor called Deborah, who had advised me to say I was self-employed, and then I was a proper adult, with a proper adult mortgage. These banks really do lend to anyone far too easily, don’t they?

  Now, I used Jenny’s old room as my spare bedroom, with my laptop, printer, and music, as well as some of my clothes. It was very extravagant, considering how much the flat was costing me, but I just knew I’d get one of the proper jobs. Something would turn up.

  I had an entire weekend in the flat alone. I opened my bank statements, which had been resting on the mat by the door. Another letter from the bank reminded me I was no longer due an interest-free student overdraft and asked me to call in to make alternative arrangements.

  What alternative arrangements did they have in mind? Would I still owe them the money?

  I looked in the fridge—nothing edible, really. Venturing into the freezer, I found some chips.

  Later I sat at the kitchen table, dipping the chips in ketchup and mayonnaise mixed together. Jenny used to hate that. There was a letter from the council—a reminder about paying council tax. Another thing I hadn’t had to pay when I was a student.

  I put the plate in the sink—I’d clean it up, at some point—and walked to my gracious spare bedroom. A pile of job and graduate scheme adverts I’d cut out of newspapers and magazines was waiting for me to complete their application forms. At an average time of over two hours each, the pile was at least sixteen hours’ work.

  I sat at the desk and fired up my laptop—I hadn’t named mine. I picked the form at the top of the pile and started to write my application letter and tweak my CV according to what hardworking, enthusiastic, being-born-to-the-job qualities they were looking for. Some of the adverts read more like a religious cult. What had happened to just wanting someone to do the job? Since when had it been a prerequisite to be born to customer service or have a passion for frozen foods or whatever it was?

  In the middle of the letter, the laptop stopped. I checked its battery, which was in and charging too. It had just given up the ghost. No matter, I thought, I’ve emailed it to myself, and I can nip round Amy’s and do a bit there—an excuse to see her if she’s in.

  I rang Amy, told her my news, and tried not to come across as too pathetic.

  “Course you can come round. Get a pizza, and we’ll make a night of it. Bring the USB stick with all the CVs and other applications you’ve done. We can use them. No reinventing of wheels here. We’ll make a game of it.”

  Her enthusiasm was brilliant, amazing, exactly what I needed. As she talked about what we could do together that night and told me about how she’d just got a new dreamcatcher and I should tell it what my dreams were and it would make them come true, I looked for my USB stick.

  I looked everywhere—and couldn’t find it.

  Then it hit me, the memory of what I’d not done. “I didn’t email it,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Internet’s not working. It sort of stopped a while ago, and I never got round to fixing it. I’ve just been using my phone for essentials. You know, IMDb, Google, Wikipedia, emails.”

  “How long’s it been down?”

  “How long have I been at that Between Town Partnership job?”

  “Three months!”

  “Not the whole time, no. Just the last half. Say a month. Or so.”

  “Did you call them to sort it?”

  “Of course I did. I’m not a child. I do understand the responsibility of living alone, you know.”

  She tutted loudly down the phone.

  “Every time I called, I waited on the phone for hours and asked for a ringback. And did they ring me back? Did they, my arse.” I looked into the bathroom and noticed a white feather on the black- and white-tiled floor. Its white fluffiness was in complete contrast to the shiny black tile it landed on. “Amy?”

  “Are you still coming round, or what?”

  “What does it mean if you see another white feather?”

  “When did you see the last one?”

  “A week ago, maybe a bit less.”

  “Right, I’m coming round. You get the pizza, I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  “But I’ve not got any Internet? You do understand that concept, don’t you? Not just ‘it’s a bit dodgy, and we’ll have to wait a while.’ I mean no Internet at all.”

  Amy arrived half an hour later. I lay on the sofa, resisting the smell of the pizza in the oven. “Show me the feather,” she said.

  I led her to the bathroom, where it lay in exactly the same place on the shiny black tile. It was about t
wo inches long, completely white, and in perfect condition, with no broken parts or missing sections. This was a show-quality, cream-of-the-crop white feather.

  “Do you have feather pillows?” Amy held the feather between her fingers.

  “No, they make me sneeze.”

  “Duvet?”

  “Are duvet cover feathers any different from pillow feathers?”

  She looked me in the eye, stuck out her bottom lip, and replied, “Who do you think I am, the woman from the department store’s bed section? I don’t fucking know. I expect they’re the same.”

  “Again with the sneezing.” I smirked.

  “What about one of those little duvet-like coats everyone’s wearing? They’re full of feathers, and they pack up all small. I was thinking about getting myself one, but then I thought about all the birds who would have to die to make it, so I didn’t in the end.”

  “It’s not like wearing fur. You can take the feathers off and keep the bird alive still.”

  “So you think. It’s not like shearing a sheep. I’ve seen a programme about bird feathers, and I tell you, you’ll never buy anything with feathers again. Or eat a duck. I don’t eat duck.”

  “Point, Amy. Have you met?”

  “Sorry?”

  “You don’t eat meat anyway, never mind bloody ducks.”

  “So the coat, have you got one?”

  I shook my head. “Again with the sneezing, although I did like the green one they do.”

  She examined the feather in her hand. “So where’s this come from?”

  “I could’ve brought it in on my shoes. Plenty of white pigeons out there, moulting all the time. Stuck on my shoe, and I tramped it in here.”

  “This isn’t a pigeon feather. And if you’d tramped it in, why’s it perfect? No mud, no breaks, nothing.”

  We both stared at the feather for a while.

  Amy spoke first. “He’s trying to get in touch with you again.”

  “Who’s it this time, please?”

  “Your guardian angel. He’s trying to get in touch to tell you something about your life.”

  “Can he tell me what to do about having no money? That would be really useful, really practical. And what about getting a job? Should I have taken that other job, or will one of these graduate ones come to anything?” I looked at the ceiling, for want of anywhere else to look except the feather or Amy’s serious face.

  “They don’t get in touch for shit like that. It’s not your own personal counsellor-stroke-Wikipedia angel, Richard!”

  “Sorry for being so stupid.” I rolled my eyes. “What we gonna do then? We can’t do my applications ’cause I’ve lost my USB thingy. We can’t look on the Internet—”

  “What? Why not? What’s wrong with it?”

  “I knew you weren’t listening. I have no Internet—it’s not working. We talked about this before.”

  “I vaguely remember, now you mention it. I think I ignored it because I couldn’t really comprehend or believe that someone would be without Internet at home for eight weeks.”

  “I have tried. Many times. But nothing.”

  Still holding the feather, Amy asked, “What happened at work today?”

  I told her about it being the last day, and umming and aahing about whether I should have taken the job there, and about the man from Finance.

  “So what’s the plan for Monday? Where you working?”

  “You know the answer to that. I’ve already told you.”

  “I know, but I just want you to say it again, so I can arrange it alongside all the other stuff that’s happening in your life at the moment.”

  “Please don’t tell me this is something to do with cosmic ordering and the universe bringing me numbers. I really don’t think I could cope.” I put my hand over my face and closed my eyes.

  “I brought my dreamcatcher, and that’s got feathers on it.”

  “Maybe that’s where it came from.” I looked at her hopefully.

  “They’re brown feathers, you idiot.” She reached into her bag and brought out the dreamcatcher and a green crystal.

  I braced myself.

  “So, what are you doing for work on Monday?”

  “During the day I’m standing wearing a sandwich board pointing to a snack bar just off Oxford Street.”

  “And at night?”

  I hung my head in shame. “I’m handing out flyers for a nightclub in King’s Cross.”

  “All week?”

  “Monday to Friday. The agency said I could do Saturday too, for an extra pound, but I said no, I was all right, I’d manage without the extra pound.”

  “Couldn’t you do with the extra money?”

  “It was an extra pound for the whole day—between the two different places, not per hour.”

  “Oh.” She nodded slowly.

  “And what do you make of all that? Pretty shit, I’d say.”

  “So it’s actually getting worse, not better. Is that fair to say?”

  I nodded. “Now you list all the things together, yes, that’s fair to say.” I paused.

  Amy counted things off on her fingers, stared at her dreamcatcher, and then cupped the green crystal in her hands.

  “Look, are we gonna eat this pizza? I’m starving. My whole life can’t be a complete washout, can it?”

  “Sorry to say, Richard, at the moment, it does look like it’s moving in that direction.”

  I walked to the kitchen, opened the oven, and took the pizza box out. The pizza was stuck hard onto the box.

  We sat eating pizza, picking bits of cardboard off every mouthful.

  Amy said, “He’s come back to tell you he’s sorry, about this… this bad patch you’re going through at the moment.”

  “What are you on about now?”

  “The feather. It’s from your guardian angel. He’s trying to get in touch again. Normally if things were going well, your luck would improve, but as you’ve said, it’s actually getting worse, not better. So he wants to apologise, explain, something. The feathers are his way of getting in touch with you.”

  “So, is it like semaphore? Two feathers means B, and then another one will mean another letter or something?” I chewed the pizza and spat out some cardboard.

  “I don’t know. I don’t make this stuff up. I’m just saying what I’ve read and what I’ve heard other people talk about.”

  “Someone makes this stuff up. All this crap. Someone somewhere is making money out of all this, I bet. And I’m the sap, sitting here picking cardboard from my pizza, with a worse job than the one I’ve just left to greet me on Monday morning, no Internet, and no computer.” I put the pizza down on the table and felt myself crying. Big sploshy tears rolled down my face. Snot came from my nose as I closed my eyes.

  Amy leant towards me and squeezed my shoulder. “Come on, it’s not that bad. You’ve still got this place, your health, me. It could be worse.”

  “Don’t say that, or it might actually get worse. Fuck it. I think I’m having some sort of a breakdown.” I pushed the pizza box away. The smell had made me feel sick suddenly. “I’m going to bed. I can’t handle this. Have I got any vodka in the kitchen?”

  “I don’t think that’ll help, really.” She squeezed my shoulder again.

  “No, seriously, can you check if I’ve got any vodka? I want a pint glass with five big shots, top it up with tonic and ice, and some lime. That should knock me out.”

  Amy stared at me, not moving.

  “If you don’t get it, I will, and you can leave. In fact, I think it’s best if you leave?”

  “What’s wrong with you? You’re not yourself. Let me get you some warm milk, and you can go to bed.”

  I said, very quietly this time so she knew I meant business, “I do not want milk. I want a pint of vodka and tonic. If you don’t get it for me, can you please leave? Thank you.”

  She made me the drink, putting it on the table.

  “In my bedroom, please. I’m going to bed now.” />
  She followed me to my room. I climbed into bed, fully clothed—the thought of undressing was just too much to contemplate. She put the pint glass of vodka and tonic on my bedside table, kissed me, and said goodbye.

  “Light, please?” I mumbled as I pulled the covers over my head.

  She turned off the light, and then there was blackness. Only the thrum of traffic and the shrill of an occasional ambulance or police car rushing outside broke the silence. I was used to the noise of London now, so it gently soothed me to sleep once I’d drunk the whole pint.

  Chapter 3

  Monday morning rolled round and I somehow dragged myself out of bed, where I’d remained for the rest of the weekend, wallowing in self-pity, rejoicing in how much of a fuck-up my life had become and not really knowing where to start to fix any of it.

  Two weeks passed where I stood in the freezing cold wearing a sandwich board during the day, then got the Tube to King’s Cross and tried to persuade commuters and tourists—as well as the odd prostitute and drug addict—to come to the nightclub around the corner, behind the back of King’s Cross station. I wasn’t allowed to stop until I’d handed out all the flyers. The agency had persuaded me it was a well-paid job as I got a percentage of entry fee for every person who went in with one of my flyers. This had sounded great, brilliant, as I stood in the warm agency office.

  Now, stood in the fuck-me-gently cold, I wondered how they actually worked that out. Because every week I’d only earned the minimum wage for the hours worked. The bare minimum they could pay me. In the fuck-me-gently cold.

  One morning during the third week of leafleting, as I got out of bed, a dark feeling of dread surrounded me, like a cold black-gloved hand clasping at my heart. I couldn’t feel my legs properly. Rather than having a shower as usual, I ran myself a bath. I saw a box of tablets for the occasional but very intense migraines I had.

  I popped six of the large circular white tablets out of the packet and slowly took one at a time, lapping water from the sink as I knelt on the floor. The bath was by now full enough. I turned off the tap and awkwardly managed to clamber into the bath, enjoying the floaty sensation from the water. I closed my eyes and lay back, after twenty minutes I started to fall asleep as the tablets took charge.