He's After Me

Chapter FOURTEEN



Falling in love is everything I hoped it would be. Jem is the most sensitive, creative, romantic, original person I have ever come across in my whole life.

He is also the most deep and complex.

Every day I discover something new about him. He loves poetry, reading to me from Shakespeare and the Romantics and poets I never knew existed, even though I’m the one who’s studying A-level English. Believe me, there is nothing more erotic than someone reading love poems to you in bed, even if the bed in question is in a poky hotel staff bedroom shared with others who could burst in on you at any moment.

He writes his own too – spare, bold verse, stripped of all pretence, that leaves me in no doubt about his feelings for me. He declares his love in striking, merciless rhyme:

I would go down for loving you.

But if I did, I’d bring you too.

And if you sent me down to hell

I’d take you with me there as well.

OK, I’m a Lit student and I recognize it may not be exactly the best poetry in the world. But, believe me, delivered in Jem’s matter-of-fact monotone, it’s powerful stuff. It’s scary but humbling at the same time. He is so open, so trusting. For all he knows I could tread on his love, tear it to shreds, scatter it to the winds. Because he is so honest with me, I find myself opening up to him too. I write him poems back, laying bare my most passionate, private thoughts, for his eyes only.

He draws up a play list for me of his favourite songs and soon they become mine. I feel that he’s educating me, taking me by the hand and leading me into his larger, more interesting world. He loves hip-hop, the urban raps which tell the story of real life on the streets. But then, paradoxically, this man of mine loves the song ‘Vincent’, which is a tribute to the brilliant, tortured artist Van Gogh, one of his idols. It’s the sort of song my mum would like, sweet and schmaltzy, and I’m surprised by his choice. But then, as I listen to the haunting lyrics, his lonely soul possesses me too.

For they could not love you

But still your love was true

And when no hope was left in sight

On that starry, starry night.

You took your life

As lovers often do …

He takes me to an art gallery to see a Van Gogh exhibition, then to others, exposing me to new images and new ideas, from the beautiful to the bizarre.

He does drawings for me, and of me, quick, skilful illustrations, original and distinctive.

He takes photographs himself, all the time, of the docks, the city, people, things, but mostly of me. I’m his favourite subject, he’s for ever clicking away when I least expect it. He must have hundreds of pictures of me. In some of them I’m posing for the camera, but in most I’m looking startled or caught unaware. On the wall above his bed in the hotel is a whole display of me getting on and off buses, bending over drying my hair, coming out of the loo, frowning with concentration, getting dressed, asleep with my mouth open, wrapped in a bath towel, laughing with friends.

Some I like. Some are not so flattering. One or two, where too much flesh is showing or when I’m sleeping, are too intimate to be on display. They make me feel uncomfortable.

‘Don’t put those up!’

‘Why not?’ he says. ‘You’re beautiful,’ and I grow bold in his approval. But later on when I see his room-mate eyeing the latest picture of me in my underwear I grow hot with shame and make him take them down.

Jem treats me like a queen, everyone says so. It’s only Dad who’s not so fussed.

And Zoe.

Zoe is being really weird about Jem. I think she’s jealous. She’s still single and she resents the time I spend with him. She had the cheek to tell me that she thinks he’s too controlling. We’ve fallen out about it.

In fact she said more than that. It all started because she wanted me to go with her one night to see a band playing.

‘I don’t know …’

‘You’re going out with Jem,’ she said, her voice flat. ‘Of course. Stupid of me to ask.’

‘Don’t be like that!’ I said in surprise. ‘No, actually. It’s because I don’t like that band any more.’

‘Why not?’

I shrugged. ‘Moved on, I guess. I like other stuff now.’

‘Stuff that Jem likes.’ She sounded like she was sneering.

‘Not necessarily. What are you trying to say?’

‘Jem says this, Jem thinks that, Jem likes this, Jem hates that. Her voice, high and silly, parodied mine, stinging me to the quick. ‘I’m sick of it, that’s all.’

‘Zoe!’ I stared at her aghast. ‘Jem doesn’t tell me what to think.’

‘You’re joking! He’s got inside your head, Anna! He controls you. Can’t you see it?’

‘Piss off!’ I said, outraged, and she did.

We’ve hardly spoken since.

The thing is, she doesn’t know Jem like I do. He comes across to her as brooding and intense, but there’s loads more to him than meets the eye.

He’s not just broadened my outlook on literature and music and art. He’s introduced me to a whole new world I could never, ever tell her about.

She hasn’t got a clue what we get up to when we’re on our own.

And I’m not talking sex here. I’m talking street.

Jem has a secret.