i did it

You know how it is. Chelsea lose two nil at home to Portsmouth, and you want to go home and bury an axe in your face. You want to do it, there and then, bury it in your face. You tell your friends, they never believe you. Normally, you'd think twice. What sort of sound would it make? That puts you off. But this time, “Two nil,” you think. “Christ, that's it, I'm doing it. This time I really am. Chunk. Axe in the face.”

It's easily done. Some people do that and it isn't even football.

Alex did it.

Alex did it and then phoned Nicola.

He said: “I did it. I said I would, and I have.”

“Is that you, Alex?” she said.

“Don't you even recognise my voice any more?”

“I haven't got time for this,” she said.

She rang off.

Alex rang back. He said: “You never believed I'd do it.”

“Wrong, Alex,” she said. “I wished you would.”

“I'm coming to see you.”

“No you're not.”

“I'm coming for lunch,” he said. “One o'clock.”

He got himself into the Audi and drove from Islington to Soho, where he waited outside her building. There was a sweet April wind. Alex breathed it deeply, feeling nothing he had expected to, only a delighted tranquillity. He did notice that he had quite an appetite. When Nicola came out of the building she stopped and stared at him.

“Still as beautiful as ever,” said Alex, though privately he thought she had put on weight.

“Christ, Alex, you sick fuck.”

“Good, isn't it?” said Alex. “I hit myself in the face with it until it stuck. It was quite hard to do that.”

“Christ.”

“I had to use a mirror. I kept swinging it in the wrong direction.” He laughed rather wildly. “And they call it the easy way out!”

“Well I'm not coming to lunch with you like that,” she said.

Later, Alex saw her in a West London restaurant with Chris. They looked happy. Alex, who was less happy, had to turn his face sideways before he could press it up against the glass. Nicola and Chris, he saw, were eating respectively a layered sandwich of handrolled buffalo mozzarella with chargrilled vegetables; and bruschetta of seared baby squid. They were drinking red, but Alex couldn't make out the label. It was probably house red. Chris wiped his mouth on a napkin. He smiled. He leaned forward to lightly touch the inside of Nicola's arm above the wrist. Alex waited until they came out of the restaurant and then jumped in front of Nicola waving his arms.

“Like it? It's your fault.”

“It's a very female thing,” Nicola was explaining to Chris, “like giving birth with wolves.”

She said: “Alex, I'm not having this.”

Chris looked embarrassed.

“Lost your tongue, Chris?” Alex asked him. “I've lost mine.”

Alex wasn't one hundred per cent certain Chris's name was Chris. Everyone who lived in West London was called Chris, and that was the name he thought he remembered: but he did admit it could easily have been Sam, or Ben. He phoned Nicola up at one o'clock in the morning. “Chris there with you?”

“Alex, leave me alone.”

“Is it Chris? I had the idea it might be Sam.”

“Alex, I'm getting an injunction.”

“I've had some photographs taken,” Alex said. “Give one to Chris. It's his fault too.”

“Alex–-”

“Is it Chris? They all have the kinds of names you give Border collies. Sam. Mick. Bill. Ben.”

“–- for God's sake leave me alone.” Alex said: “Bill and Ben, eh?”
He said: “I did it for you, Nicola.”

And he burst into tears.

Nicola did it next.

“You'll be pleased to know I've done it too,” she said. “You made me, Alex. Chris couldn't bear you following us about.” It was her turn to burst into tears. “Alex, he left me for some scrawny little twenty-year-old, and it's your fault. How does that make you feel, Alex?”

It made Alex feel annoyed.

“You've got no imagination of your own,” he said. “Women never have.”

Nicola laughed nastily.

“I'm coming round to show you, Alex.”

“Show Chris,” said Alex, and hung up.

People all over London are walking about with axes buried in their faces. You see them on tubes and buses, you never know why they did it. It might be that their whole family died in a nuclear accident on a visit to Poland. But it's more likely that they have recently been stood up, or that last night they had to talk to Yuri the comics expert at the Academy Club:

“Nobody would ban Lady Chatterley's Lover these days. They just don't have time to read it. Visual images are a different thing.”
Chunk. Axe in the face.

The moment Nicola started following Chris, Alex stopped following Nicola.

It happened this way.

One morning he woke with a terrific headache. In the bathroom he was surprised by the thought: Is it a good axe? He also thought: Is an axe too much of a statement? Finally he thought: I'm not sure I ever liked this anyway. He examined his face, turning it right and then left, careful to stand back from the mirror. The axe was off-centre, and twisted a bit where it had bounced off his top gum. That had always spoilt it for him, as had the effect it gave of a harelip. He shaved round the axe and looked at it again.

“No. No good.”

Midday, he phoned Nicola.

“I've had it out,” he said.

“Why should I care?”

“They have to lever quite hard,” Alex told her, “when they're loosening it. It's a very male, a very physical experience. How would I describe it?”

“I didn't ask.”

Alex thought for a minute.

“It's a bit like having your wisdom tooth done,” he explained. “You know?”

He said: “Now it's out, I feel great!”

Nicola put the phone down.

Chris told Nicola, as kindly as he could:

“Nicola, you need counselling.”

The very next time she phoned him, he hung up, although not before she had heard her replacement in the background, calling:

“Chris, is that the Mad Bitch? Come and fuck me afterwards! Chris? Chris?”

She phoned Alex.

“Alex, I'm so miserable.”

“Get a life,” advised Alex.

He said: “I have.”

That was the low point, they now agree. Shortly afterwards they were accepted for joint counselling at Islington Relate. As soon as they felt able to talk over their differences without the help of a third party, they arranged to meet in the Bar Italia on Frith Street. It was a Saturday evening at the beginning of September. Nicola wore her long silver one-sleeved dress from Amanda Wakeley on Fulham Road, and carried an Anya Hindmarch bag with a diamante clasp. She was a little late. She found Alex watching Italian football on the Bar Italia TV: Juventus v AC Milan.

“Aren't you cold in that?” he asked Nicola. He said: “You look very nice.”

The counselling service had persuaded Nicola to have her axe out. She felt a little nervous, a little exposed, without it; and she was shocked and upset to see that Alex's was back. He had planted it squarely in the middle of his face. This time he had thought about it properly and gone for a good practical Stanley with a black rubber grip. He looked tired.

“Alex! Who is it?”

“What?”

“Alex, that!”

“This? Oh, this is just Manchester United losing to City,” laughed Alex. “I'll get over it.”

copyright m john harrison 2003

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