Destiny Fails

He was leaning over the freezer cabinet, fondling what looked, from her safe vantage point, like a pack of frozen peas. He had no arse – just a sagging denim flap, like a diseased internal organ, stained with, Sally hoped, mud; his hair was matted and shiny with grease, like a teenager’s, although he was the same age he always was when they first met – late twenties. She couldn’t actually see from her position behind the gondola end, but she knew the shoulders of his denim jacket – yes he was wearing double denim – would be littered with dandruff.

Sally stared mournfully at the sorry excuse for a man – his horrible hunched form all she could see despite the bustle of the supermarket continuing around her. He was probably the most unattractive human being she had ever seen and she was destined to spend the rest of her life with him.

The shock of seeing him, the realisation that he was the one, eased enough for Sally to take a small sidestep so that she was more fully shielded by the gondola display. She made a half-hearted pretence of perusing the goods on display – bargain CDs and DVDs. Something new from Susan Boyle; a boy from X-Factor’s latest batch of cover versions and something from Michael Buble. She quite like a bit of Buble. She peered around the display to check his whereabouts. He hadn’t moved – literally hadn’t budged an inch. How long did it take to read the blurb on a packet of peas? His lips were moving as if he were reading a prayer instead of cooking instructions. Sally released an audible groan. How could this be him?

He’d never been repulsive before. Life after life they’d been through this and he’d always been attractive. Sometimes dark, sometimes blondes, sometimes white, others black, once he’d even been a she, but never a complete and utter munter.

It always started the same way – the realisation the she was destined to me him and be with him for the rest of her life. From around the age of six she would start having dreams about their previous existences together; not just dreams but actual memories too.

In the last life the first meeting had been in the foyer of a New York theatre in 1927. She’d been selling programmes and he’d been leaving the theatre, arm in arm with a stunningly good looking woman. This had irked her. She’d been dreaming about this moment since the age of six, barely even glancing sideways at another man, and here he was out on a date with a bloody floozy.

“Arthur?” she’d used his name from their previous life – the life in which he’d owned a mill in Lancashire and she’d been a seamstress. He stopped abruptly at the sound of her voice.

“What’s wrong, Ted?” his date asked – she sounded quite the New York socialite.

He, on the other hand, while looking the part in a dapper three-piece suit and slicked back, dark hair, had the voice of a social climber. “Nelly, that you?”

“It’s Eve this time around,” she said, clutching the batch of programmes to her chest defensively.

“Who is this, Ted?” his date sounded horrified that he could possibly know someone in such a servile situation. Surely she knew he wasn’t from the same class as her.

“Sadly, Lucy,” he’d replied, dropping his date’s arm, “This is the woman I am going to spend the rest of my life with.”

Lucy seemed beset by rigor mortis, standing like someone imitating a teapot. Ted, meanwhile, looped his arm around Eve’s waist and drew her towards the exit.

“My job...” Eve had protested lamely, dropping the programmes onto the well-trodden carpet.

Behind them Lucy was emitting a sound like a kettle reaching boiling point (the old-fashioned whistling kind). Then Eve heard a thud and turned to see poor Lucy splayed across the foyer floor.

Inevitably, sex had come next. There was never any adhering to the social constraints of the time for them – the chemistry was always too strong. They had almost run the distance between the theatre and her dank, little room, scuttling upstairs and flinging themselves on the bed which groaned under the reckless fornication that followed.

How could that handsome, charismatic man have been reborn as this? At least he’d stopped fondling the frozen peas. Now he was just hovering by the freezer cabinet looking bewildered – bewildered at 28! Assuming he was two years older than she was, like he’d been in all his other incarnations.

There was no denying it was him. The feeling had swept over her the moment she’d seen him – a feeling of instant recognition; the entire world standing still for a second and the sight of him become her total focus. The only difference this time was the complete lack of any physical attraction. Why was he so ugly? Dirty. Granted, she wasn’t exactly stunning this time around, but at least she made an effort. She never went to the shops in her pyjamas, even when she had a rancid hangover; always had at least a stand-up wash in the morning and brushed her teeth twice a day, unless she was really pissed, in which case she’d brush them extra thoroughly the next morning, when she’d finished throwing up. He looked like he’d been sleeping in his clothes for weeks, and doing more than sleep in them judging by the unpleasant stains.

Sally took a deep, nerve-steadying breath. She could just slip out quietly without speaking to him, but that would only postpone the inevitable. For some reason they were destined for each other for eternity, always meeting and falling in love in every lifetime; joined by fate until one or both of them died. Usually the depth of their love meant that when one died the other followed soon after.

“Eve?”

He was standing right next to her. How had she not heard him? And even if she hadn’t heard him, how had she not smelt him? Sally gagged.

“Dear God, you stink!” Sally backed away from him, colliding with a large black woman and her packed trolley.

The stench was overwhelming – like her flat smelt after she’d cooked fish, with an underlying tang of piss and, there was no getting away from it, shit.

“Charming,” he said, brown eyes – actually not unattractive brown eyes – darting from side to side

“Sorry,” said Sally, “but I’m finding it hard to breath. And my name is Sally this time around.”

“I’m Nigel.”

“Nigel? Really?”

“Yep.”

“Great.”

Nigel scratched his armpit beneath his jacket, then sniffed his hand. “Shall we get dinner or something?” he asked.

“I’m not really hungry,” said Sally, tasting vomit.

“Talk about old times. Remember when we were Jewish refugees...?”

“I can’t do that yet,” said Sally. “I need wine...”

“We could go back to yours – skip straight to the physical stuff.”

“...lots and lots of wine.”

“I need a few more bits too,” he said grinning. His teeth were grey with green edges.

“Toothpaste,” suggested Sally, hopefully. “Some soap, maybe?”

“That’s rude.” His eyes started darting around again, wilder now, like bearings in a pinball machine.

“I’ll meet you at the exit,” said Sally, heading towards the off licence. If she managed to get through the checkout before she threw up it would be a miracle.

***

Someone was screaming outside the supermarket.

Sally became aware of a group of shoppers gathered just beyond where the centipede rows of trolleys. There was someone lying on the ground, legs splayed across the outskirts of the car park, upper body still on the raised area which surrounded the supermarket. His head was masked behind a cluster of legs, as more shoppers gathered to inspect the human wreckage, but Sally could tell it was him from the stained denim.

A woman was hanging out the driver’s door of a grey mini just beyond where he lay. “He stepped out in front of me,” she said accusingly, her pale face flushed – one hand clutched at her thatch of red hair, the other still gripped the steering wheel, prepared to make a quick get-away.

The denim legs stirred, flopping into a more natural configuration. He raised his head – one of the on-lookers had shifted slightly so that Sally could see him more clearly. She was surprised at how relieved she felt to see him move. A teenage boy and a middle-aged woman stepped forward to help him up.

“I’m fine, thank you,” he said, sounding disappointed. “It only clipped me.”

Sally noticed he had no shopping. Why had he been in such a hurry to leave?

“You stepped out in front of me,” shrieked the driver again, the flush now creeping down her long neck.

“I’m fine,” Nigel reassured her, and the women slammed the car door and drove off.

Nigel nodded and smiled at the people who surrounded him. “I’ll be okay thanks,” he assured them. As they began to disperse Sally thought she detected an air of despondency, as if they’d hoped for a little more drama. Nigel brushed the front of his jeans with his palms, not that the dirt from the car park floor made that much difference to the general state of his clothes.

Sally coughed. Nigel looked up, blinking at her as if she were a bright light.

“Are you really okay?” she asked, taking a hesitant step towards him, trying not to breath too deeply.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“What for?”

“I thought if I ended it all we’d be able to skip this time around.”

“Oh God!” Sally felt so bad she was tempted to hug him. “Look, I’m the one who should be sorry, I shouldn’t have been so rude – I should have been a bit more subtle. Diplomatic.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, frowning and rubbing the space between his eyebrows with two finger, like someone trying to decipher a difficult maths problem. “I saw you weeks ago.”

“Really?” now Sally was frowning.

“I knew it was you but...”

“But what?”

“I just wasn’t interested.”

Talk about a slap in the face. Sally felt winded, indignant, insulted and slightly aggressive all at once.

“You weren’t interested?”

“You were standing outside the pub on the corner of Brady Street, swaying a bit, your lipstick was smeared across your face and mixed with red wine stains; your teeth were black. It was a horrible sight.”

“Hey!”

“I’m sorry, but apart from that pulling feeling we get every time and the absolute certainty that it was you, I felt nothing, apart from a feint feeling of repulsion.”

A fat, breathless women barged past Sally, almost knocking her against Nigel. The woman paused, moist eyes offering something like an apology, before shuffling away, bulging shopping bags banging against her enormous thighs.

“Go on,” said Sally. “You were saying how repulsive you found me.”

“I haven’t slept for weeks,” said Nigel, eyes looking suddenly hooded and bleary. “Not since I saw you. I managed to hide in a doorway before you caught sight of me – not that you were capable of seeing anything clearly. I watched you stagger off, veering from one side of the pavement to the other. I felt embarrassed for you.”

“It was my best friend’s birthday!” protested Sally. “I had a few too many. When did you get so judgemental. It’s not like I have a drink problem!”

The wine bottles jangled in Sally’s carrier bag as she tried to gesticulate. Nigel gave them a smug look.

“It wasn’t just seeing you in that state,” he continued. “”I’ve seen you loads of times since then. I can’t avoid you. I knew if you saw me it would be over – the wheels of fate set in motion. One morning I saw you on the tube. You looked half decent – hair brushed a bit, lipstick actually on your lips – I almost said something, and then I saw you were reading that book.”

“What book?” Sally knew what book.

“Fifty Shades of ...” Nigel’s voice trailed off. He grimaced, looking at the ground, as if he’d just told her something intimate about his genitals.

“It was a present!” said Sally, “I only read the first couple of chapters.”

“That’s not true is it. Every time I saw you for a week you were poring over that book, practically salivating.”

“You are actually a stalker,” said Sally, catching the attention of a young mother who steered her two children away from the bickering pair.

“It wasn’t easy,” said Nigel. “I can’t believe you didn’t see me. I genuinely wanted to see something that would draw me to you, some sign that we might have something in common.”

“What, like lack of any hygiene routine? Incontinence? Sitting around in my own stench?” Sally didn’t care if the wine bottles were clanking.

“I don’t normally look like this,” said Nigel. “This is what three weeks of imagining a lifetime with you have done to me. I’ve been signed off work with severe depression and stress. This is the first time I’ve ventured out for days. When I saw you looking at me I just pretended I hadn’t seen you. Then I thought if I acted like a complete prat you’d feel as repulsed by me as I am by you...”

“It worked,” snapped Sally. “You ooze unattractiveness like puss!”

“That’s not bad,” said Nigel, face brightening a little.

“Don’t patronise me,” said Sally, “What makes you think you’re so much better than me?”

“I read books by people who can actually write.”

“Oh do you!” Sally was aware how ultra-shrill she was getting. She was desperately trying to think of a few writers’ names to throw at him, but anger had wiped her mind clean.

“Look,” said Nigel, raising both hands in surrender. “We’re agreed we don’t want to be together, right?”

“God yes!”

“Well there’s only so much fate can make us do. It can keep throwing us together, but it can’t force us to actually do anything. We can’t accidently end up sleeping together can we?”

“No!” the bottles gave a particularly loud clang.

“So how about we just walk away. When fate puts us on the same train or in the same restaurant we just ignore each other.”

“Fine by me.”

“Eventually fate will get bored.”

“And what about the next life?”

“Maybe there won’t be one. Maybe this will end the whole being together for eternity caper once and for all.”

“I like the way you say caper,” said Sally, smiling. “Arthur used to say that...”

“You used to make me say it all the time,” laughed Nigel. “You said it made you tingle in your...”

“I’d better get home,” said Sally.

“Yes,” said Nigel. “I’ve got loads to do.”

“Shower maybe?” Sally guffawed far too loudly.

“Bye,” said Nigel, walking towards the car park exit.

“Yeah, bye,” said Sally. “Take care.”