For You, Not Them

Sean sat near the middle of the bus as it rolled into the village. It was so weird to imagine that this was where Danyela had once lived. It was a sleepy little cul de sac of nothing. Maybe 15 buildings in total, one of which was a Church.

There was one solitary stop next to a grubby looking convenience store, a set of soggy Daily Mails sat in the newspaper stands.

Sean walked down the main street, and glanced into the local pub. It was a building that looked like it was struggling under the weight of the sad English weather, with the walls seeming to sag into the ground and the windowpanes old enough for there to be ripples in it. The bar was lit by a single, yellow light that gave the wooden surfaces the air of a faded book. Two old men sat hunched over ales, Sean couldn’t see their lips moving so he assumed they sat in silence.

The Church was similarly crooked, one of its spires was missing. Rusted metal crosses were all over its walls, inserted decades (centuries?) ago to hold the decaying masonry together. As he walked through the gate, into the small cemetery in the front, he scanned the uneven plot of grass with several of the tombstones half sunk into the soil. It seemed abandoned by the dead themselves.

There was a large group of people milling around the Church’s entrance. It occurred to him, that Sean had never even met Danyela’s family, didn’t even know what they looked like. For a brief second, he felt like an intruder, that the crowd would see him and question why he was even there. Then he saw Tatty, Georgie, and Harris — standing a little apart from the main group and relaxed.

He made his way towards them; Georgie was the first to notice him. He gave her an awkward wave and she smiled back, the expression was one of someone barely holding back tears.

“Can you imagine if she was here?” Sean heard Tatty say as he walked up to them.

“This.” Tatty gestured dramatically at the structure. “She’d say this was the perfect illustration of how people have moved further from God.”

It was hard for Sean to reconcile Tatty, the punk raver, in a funeral suit. Despite his multiple piercings and bleached and spiked hair, he actually cut a distinct figure in a black and white 3 piece.

“Yeah, probably.” Harris nodded. Harris, always the stoned skater, managed to make his suit look baggy. Sean appreciated that Harris had kept his faded baseball cap on.

There was an awkward silence as everyone tried to figure out what to say next.

“I can’t believe she grew up here.” Georgie said, her voice was quiet. Sean had only ever known Georgie as a chirpy hippie girl. She was both muted in demeanour and colours. Her dress a simple black. “It sort of makes sense though. You know? This place was too small to contain her.”

They all nodded.

Sean looked at each of them. Georgie looked like she’d been crying all day already with the bags under her eyes being puffed up. Harris looked tired. Tatty just looked like he always looked — listless, almost annoyed by the very existence of the day.

“Shall we find somewhere to sit?” Harris suggested as people started to filter into the building.

As they walked in Sean felt someone tap him on the shoulder, he turned and saw it was Sharon.

“Oh my god, I almost didn’t recognise you.” She smiled. “Why did you cut your hair?”

Sean shrugged.

“Well, it looks… good.” She said with an approving look. She glanced past Sean to see the others and said hello to each. She was met with an icy stare from Tatty, and Sean could tell Georgie wasn’t keen either.

“Do you mind if I sit with you guys?” Sharon asked.

“It’s a free country.” Tatty replied.

They shuffled into a stuffy pew, there was space for 5 people to sit comfortably, the Church was packed. Sean was still bewildered by the numbers of people, apart from the group, the only person he recognised was one of Danyela’s exes. She was sitting near the back, shaved head, heavy eye make-up, and a heavily gothic dress. He had met her quite a few times but could not remember her name (Constance? Connie? Catherine?).

The vicar stood up and began the ceremony. Sean drifted off into his own memories.

He’d met Danyela entirely by chance in his English Literature class. She had stood out with her long black hair with a Betty Page fringe, a septum piercing, pale skin and even paler blue eyes. Despite being a goth, she had a warmth to her that he had found immediately appealing. They ended up on a project together and had gone to the pub afterwards, which is where he had met the others. Slowly he’d ended up spending more time with them, getting high, getting drunk, and partying.

She had had this magnetism, like she created her own gravitational pull. Sean remembered the perfect day being a hungover Sunday lying on Danyela and Georgie’s couch while the three of them read from a Kerouac haiku list. Not that he really understood any of it, but that feeling of belonging was something he craved.

It had been heartbreaking when, one day, she just left for London. Without Danyela there, Sean had nothing to tether him to the others. Then Georgie and Tatty had a messy split up and that sealed the separation. Until now.

Sean felt himself wanting to say something to the three of them, like it was good to see them, that he missed them…

He stopped himself knowing that, really, they weren’t that close. This was a transient moment for them, he wasn’t even sure that he had even really known Danyela, from the way the priest was talking about her she seemed like she had been someone else to them.

Sean was snapped out of his reverie by Sharon bursting into wails next him. He frowned, he’d known Sharon peripherally, the impression he had gotten was that she and Danyela hated each other. But no, there was Sharon crying buckets. There was a disconnect, had he even really known his friend, had they even been friends?

They played “Disintegration” by The Cure as the coffin was taken out of the building. The surprise came when it was Harris that got up to be one of the pallbearers and not Tatty. Sean looked at the punk, but he did not turn to look at him and instead looked straight ahead, his jaw clenching and unclenching.

They stood at a distance, Danyela’s ex recognised them and said “hi”. Tatty and Georgie had started chain smoking by that point and Sean sniffed the air and smelt Georgie’s clove cigarettes and felt a sense of nostalgia that embarrassed him.

The ex walked away.

“Fucked that she is here.” Tatty laughed in a hollow fashion. “Dany screwed her over. Bailed without paying rent, and left her for that arsehole.”

“I guess she really loved her.” Harris suggested.

Tatty flicked his finished cigarette to the ground and stubbed it down, his shoe sunk into the ground. Then he asked:

“Pub?”

The tavern still only had two patrons when the four of them got there. The inside gave off the atmosphere of an abandoned greenhouse, but the fungal smell was even more pungent. The walls had imitation wood panels that were faded or gnawed away at the floor’s edge. The carpet throughout had a viscosity where it seemed to cling, briefly, to the foot as it lifted up. The bartender was an old man in his 40s, with a lazy eye, and moustache that was grey, but black in the middle which made him look like Hitler.

They each bought a pint and sat in the corner of the room. Tatty downed his entire pint and then sat and smoked. Harris played with his by turning it around clockwise and causing markings on the worn tabletop. Georgie took sips from her drink, staring into the bottom of it.

Sean continued to feel this sense of surrealness. Like the social glue between them had withered and they were now in their own little worlds.

“Can you believe that cunt Sharon came?” Tatty asked.

“Yeah, Dany hated her. Sharon was pissed because she made out with some guy that Sharon fancied.” Georgie laughed.

“Maybe she reconsidered after Dany di-

Harris started but Tatty cut him off.

“No, fuck that, and fuck Sharon.”

There was a wave of relief that fell over Sean. He hadn’t been wrong, there was a reality.

“I need another drink.” Tatty grumbled.

The four sat and drank more, people trickled in from the funeral. This was the regulars from the village that must have known Danyela. In between them was Sharon who was now chatting to an older woman.

After 5 pints Sean started to feel himself get dizzy. Harris had his arm around him, and Georgie was laughing about something Tatty had said. Sean found himself laughing too.

He felt like he was home again, there was that warmth again. The dingy, smelly pub, the clove cigarettes, the proximity.

He looked at Georgie and in his drunken mind he wondered if he should tell her. What was left of his sober mind told him that it would be a stupid idea.

Over the top of the voices, he heard Sharon loudly proclaim:

“I know, I know, we were all worried about her, I know.” She was slurring a little as she shouted. “When she ended up with that fella, we all said ‘Hmmm, he is trouble’. We never thought she would overdose –

Sean looked over at Tatty and he could see his jaw clenching and unclenching. Harris had pulled away and looked resigned.

“I mean, welllll.” Sharon said in a sing-song sort of way. “We knew something was going to happen just not what would.”

Tatty stood up.

“So sad, we were all sad.” Sharon finished.

“Fucking cunt.” Georgie muttered.

Tatty looked like he was going to cause a scene. Instead, he looked at all of them, jaw flexing.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Sean let them get up, deflated.

“Are you coming?” Tatty asked, he followed them without hesitation.

They stood outside the pub in a grey dusk that sapped the colour from the surroundings while Tatty got the car.

I should say something now, Sean thought, this is the time while I am drunk enough to admit it.

“Georgie.” Sean’s heart started beating, he was actually going to say it.

She looked at him with a drunk-glazed look.

“What’s up?”

“I am going to say something stupid.” He said, trying to muster the energy.

She laughed.

“Then just don’t.”

This sucked the air out of him. He managed to laugh.

Tatty pulled the car up in front of them, the tires squealed in protest as he braked abruptly. He yelled through the open passenger window at them to get in.

Sean felt his brain start to spin faster as the car peeled off. Harris and Georgie were laughing in the back. Tatty was hunched over the wheel, staring intently at the world.

“How fucking dare she?” Tatty asked to no one in particular.

“We should go back to Harris’s house.” Georgie suggested.

“Yeah, let’s smoke a bowl.” Harris agreed.

“How dare she?” Tatty said again.

“Oh, forgot her, she’s a cunt.” Georgie replied.

“No Georgie.” Tatty barked. “Not Sharon, Danyela.”

Simon couldn’t tell if he was too drunk if the car was speeding up.

“Danyela?” Georgie sounded confused. “Babe-

“No, you don’t get it.” Tatty looked at Sean. “Do you get it?”

“I don’t think so.” Sean said. He felt the car lurch a little underneath him, the road painfully claustrophobic, there were no other lights other than the car’s headlamps. “But I want to.”

“This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.” Tatty complained. “I know I’ve always thought the world was unfair. But this, this isn’t right.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Harris said. “This is the worst day of my life.”

“No, you don’t get it.”

“Danyela cheated me. She’s like that, but not to me.”

All Sean could see outside the car was the little stone walls bordering each side of the narrow country lane.

“Wait did you and Dany date?” Georgie asked, frowning.

“No!” Tatty yelled. “No, we didn’t date. She cheated me.”

Sean was starting to sober up.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Georgie asked.

Sean felt the car lurch again.

“Dany said that if we were going to go, she’d wait for me first.” Tatty said.

Inside the car went silent.

“You are going pretty fast dude.” Harris said.

It felt like the little car was straining against its very suspension.

“Tatty, slow down.” Georgie said, bluntly.

A light showed in the distance, it looked like the start of a town.

“Tatty slow down.”

“She said she wouldn’t go without me.” Tatty said. “She promised.”

“Tatty, please fucking slow down.” Georgie said again.

“She can’t be dead, she promised.” Tatty offered as an explanation.

The car started to decelerate. Sean looked at Tatty and could not read his expression. The punk leaned forward and pressed play on his cassette player.

“I saw her a month before, we talked about it, her addiction. I told her that she wasn’t allowed to go without me.” He sneered. “She laughed, she promised that she’d outlive me. She cheated me.”

“I feel like she cheated everyone.” Harris tried to reassure his friend.

“She never broke a promise before, not to me.” Tatty replied, his fist punching the wheel of the car as punctuation.

“I loved Danyela, I did, but one thing she was good at was breaking promises.” Georgie pointed out.

“Not to me.” Tatty fully turned around to look into the back seat. The car started speeding up.

The car started passing through the town.

“Turn the fuck around, you are scaring us! Scaring me!” Georgie yelled.

“Not to me.” Tatty muttered again.

Sean watched Tatty turn around and, as if in slow motion, turn the wheel with a deliberateness.

Then nothing.