Page 20 of Electric Boy

“That’s funny, because I thought you just said you couldn’t remember what we were fighting about.”

Aisling was really starting to get nervous now. It was apparent in the way her gaze darted over to Rahul and a fuchsia flush was making its slow ascent up her alabaster neck. She hissed under her breath, “Can we talk -- in private, please?”

Julian shrugged a neon-patterned shoulder and slid off his stool, wandering as if by chance into Mel’s unoccupied office. Aisling followed and shut the door behind them with a sharp click.

Mel’s office door was inlaid with frosted glass, turning them into little more than shadowy, indistinguishable figures. When the low susurrus of hushed voices began, Rahul did his best to sidle inconspicuously up to the door. At first, he could make out nothing beyond the gentle rise and fall of voices in conversation. But then there was a dramatic spike in volume from Aisling. Julian was a naturally soft-spoken person, which always seemed at odds with his flamboyant nature. His excitement or agitation tended to accelerate his pace or pitch but not his decibel level. If anything, Rahul had learned, the more upset Julian became, the quieter his voice grew. Aisling, like an ordinary person, became louder as her emotions became stronger.

“-- fucking liar!” Rahul heard her screech.

A beat, in which Rahul could just barely make out the rumble of Julian’s voice.

“I’m controlling?” Aisling shrieked. Something unintelligible and then “… self-centred, narcissistic, cheater!” Followed by a crash and a shatter. Rahul winced. Mel was going to be livid.

“You think I’ve gone beyond the pale?” Aisling’s voice was scathing. “That’s rich coming from…” (indistinguishable) “… sticking your cock into anything that comes your way and I’m bloody sick of it!”

A cascading and crashing sound, like a tumbling of books or records. The soft, tense tones of Julian’s voice. Then Aisling’s hollered, “Oh yeah? Well, fuck you!”

The office door banged open so suddenly Rahul barely had time to get out of the way before Aisling came storming out like a tropical hurricane. “You’ve gone wrong, you have!” She was yelling, arms flailing and all pretence of a middle-class accent gone. “And don’t think you can take me back after this, ‘cause we’re through! We’re well through, we are!”

Julian came as far as the doorway. His arms were wrapped tightly around himself and lips pursed so thin as to be invisible. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said in a voice as tight as his lips. “I wouldn’t take you back for a million quid. I wouldn’t take you back if you were the last girl on Earth.”

“Good!” Aisling stopped at the shop door to scream her lungs out at him, purse thrashing violently in her hand. “Who’d want you anyway?”

“Fuck off,” Julian bit out.

“You fuck off, you bloody tosser!” She spat on the tiled floor and stalked out into the busy street.

She seemed to take most of the oxygen in the shop with her as she left. Rahul turned back to Julian and found him sagging against the office doorframe. He looked older than Rahul had ever seen him.

“Well,” Rahul began, just for something to say.

Julian’s shaky hands reached for the cigarettes in his back pocket. He brought one to his lips and lit it unsteadily.

By the time he’d exhaled a plume of smoke, Rahul had thought of something to say. “I hate to say I told you so, but I did always say that Aisling was --”

Julian pushed bodily past Rahul to grab his parka and made a beeline for the door and the frigid London streets.

Chapter Thirteen: She’s Lost Control

Aisling could hardly get the key into the lock for the tears in her eyes and the shaking of her hand. She did manage it though, through sheer stubborn determination, and shoved the flat door open with a satisfying bang against the wall.

She didn’t even bother to close the door. Just barged in, a whirlwind of coats and skirts, and began ransacking the place. Could evidence of his mistresses be found in the credenza? No? How about the little drawers of the coffee table? She found hand lotion and a few porno rags which, while disgusting, weren’t exactly the evidence she was looking for. She sniffled and rubbed roughly at her eyes, trying not to think of what that would do to her mascara, and searched on.

If he was going to behave like an oik, she was going to act like an oik’s girlfriend and go straight up mental on him. She kicked his hideous guitar, the one that was more gaffer tape than wood, and it hit the floor with a resounding, discordant thrum. It made her feel marginally better before she moved her attack to the bedroom.

This -- this -- this bastard had jerked her around for five years. He’d made her bloody miserable and she’d put up with it all, come back to him time and time again, and for what? How did he repay her? By shagging some tart and blaming it all on Aisling. Well, she’d had enough. She was damn sick and tired of being Julian’s whipping dog. He thought he could get away with anything because he was fit and in some band. She was going to show him that didn’t mean fuck all. She was going to find the proof that he’d shagged someone else and then she’d rub his bloody nose in it.

She tore open the drawer of his nightstand only to find more lubricant, porn, and tissues. All right, it wasn’t like she hadn’t known that men wanked, but this was getting ridiculous. She got down on her stockinged knees and peered under the bed. Some recklessly abandoned pants (Julian’s, unless he was shagging girls who wore Y-fronts), dust-bunnies, football boots, and what would otherwise be quite a scandalous collection of Kate Bush records in a mouldering cardboard box. Shouldering off the defeat, Aisling flung open the wardrobe. Her eyes were assaulted by a discordant array of what could loosely be termed “clothes” and what would more accurately be described as “regalia.” She quickly shuttered the wardrobe doors to save herself from being blinded. If there were girls’ clothes in there, they would be indistinguishable from the frocks that Julian, unfortunately, already owned.

Defeat biting at her heels, Aisling still refused to give in and took her search to the bathroom even as her better judgement warred with her. Under the sink, nothing. Mirror cabinet, nothing. The mirror shut and she was abruptly confronted by her own reflection.

Her permed curls were lank against her forehead, her white cheeks streaked with black, and, behind all these, a face she no longer recognized. The green eyes were wild and unfocused, the shapely lips pale and chapped. The face she’d studied as a teen, the face she’d spent hours tracing for signs of spots or over-large pores, the face she’d applied makeup to every morning for the past seven years, was nowhere to be found. She didn’t recognize this incensed harpy, this creature so overcome with jealousy as to break in and tear apart her boyfriend’s home.

She’d dreamed of being a famous fashion designer once.

Julian had been two years above her but he’d changed majors from graphic design to fashion design and thus ended up in the same fashion theory class as Aisling, who’d been in her first year. His hair had been red then, a dark, unnatural crimson colour that drew the eye. He would spend lessons bent over his spiral notebook, doodling away mad designs. She’d asked to see them once, after the lesson, when she’d worked up enough courage to speak to him. He’d shown her and she’d been baffled, frightened, and intrigued all at once. Demons sucking the life out of David Bowie, monkeys dressed as schoolgirls, jaguars with guns for teeth. It was deranged, but entirely unique. And good. If she’d only been half as talented…

They became fast friends. He was full of endless ideas and jokes and she was utterly fascinated. She could have listened to him for hours, and she did. Much like Newton’s first law, if uninterrupted he could go on forever. His thoughts would spiral ever farther afield until they only loosely resembled human ideas. They were more like an extraterrestrial language, or acid trip reasoning, but he didn’t touch any drugs outside of the occasional pot and student-typical alcohol consumption.