That’s it, then. Just have to pick up some flowers on the way home and then I can head over to Sheila’s. Everything going well. Everything under control. Better than expected. Maybe go for quick pint in The Lamb and Flag before I head off.
3.15 p.m. Shit! Forgotten to buy Alison’s present. Have forgotten the whole reason I came up here in the first place. Got all the way down to the Piccadilly Line platform and was busy reading a fascinating advert about haemorrhoid cream when suddenly felt like I’d forgotten something important. Fought my way back to the lifts, realised I didn’t have time to queue and decided to run up the stairs.
3.2.0 p.m. Have had heart attack. Well, it feels like I’ve had a heart attack. There are 193 stairs at Covent Garden station. That’s the equivalent of fifteen flights. Am definitely going to pass out. Why did I try and run up? What am I trying to prove? Why do I feel like David Essex’s dad?
3.2.5 p.m. Looking good, feeling good. Am in great shape for a bloke my age. Pulse rate back down to sixty in less than ten minutes. Fitness is all about recovery time anyway. I read that on a Tube ad somewhere.
So, what to get for Alison? What does Alison like? She likes things that smell nice. She likes those expensive candles that are supposed to smell of autumn leaves and chocolate but actually smell like your nan’s sock drawer. Fine. I know where to get those. Scented candles and maybe a book I can write something nice in, a guide to Bruges maybe.
Hang on. Hang on. Alison will put the candles in her hotel room. She’ll invite some of her new work mates up for a drink. The women will all go home and Alison will be left alone with Donkey-schlong. She’ll light the candles. He’ll try to suck up by saying how nice they smell and Alison will say, Thanks, they were a present from my boyfr… Oh, it doesn’t matter, come over here and have a sniff. Has anyone ever told you that you look a little bit like Ant and Dec?
BASTARD!
It’s gone 5.30 by the time I make it over to Sheila’s and at first I’m convinced I’m at the wrong house. Sheila doesn’t even have a lawn. What she does have is a jungle. The grass is up to my knees. It probably hasn’t been mowed since they stopped rationing. It’s going to take me hours, and I’m actually considering running away when Sheila spots me from the window, sees me with Alison’s flowers and says, “Oh, Daniel, lilies. Goodness me, you shouldn’t have.”
It takes for ever. Sheila’s lawnmower is more blunt than Vince when he’s being very bloody blunt, and I end up hacking at some of the weeds with one of her kitchen knives. I’m showered in grass and soil and bits of snails that I’ve accidentally trodden on and I’m getting quite used to the sickening crunch they make when I stand on them now. It’s almost seven before I’m finished.
“Oh, that looks very good. Now, you must let me make you a cup of tea.”
“I can’t, Sheila, honestly, I’m really late, it’s Alison’s leaving party tonight. I’ve really got to go.”
“Nonsense. I’ve bought you some Mr. Kipling’s Bakewell Slices. I went to Budgens specially.”
The thought of Sheila making a special trip to Budgens and fishing about in her purse for a few spare coppers is more than I can bear. I sit down and have a cup of tea and a cake with her. I need it, actually. I haven’t had anything but a few dry cornflakes all day.
Sheila wants to chat. She wants to tell me everything she’s found out about Bruce Lee (which thankfully isn’t very much) and she’s fished out some pictures that she wants to show me of her and her late husband when they were in Antwerp together before the war. Antwerp looks nice. Sheila looks nice, about a foot taller than she is now with dark hair ironed into neat curls, and wide, smiling eyes that look full of hope. She must be about twenty. Her husband looks like a film star, Ronald Colman or someone like that: tall with black hair and a rakish moustache, and he’s got one hand on his pipe and the other resting on the small of Sheila’s back. They look very happy. They look very much in love. They were married for the best part of fifty years.
“Sheila, do you mind if I ring Alison and tell her that I’m going to be a bit late?”
“No, of course not, and tell her from me what a very lucky girl she is to have you.”
“Where the hell have you been? It’s almost eight o’clock. I was about to leave without you.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it had got so late. I’ve been held up at Sheila’s. You wouldn’t believe the state her garden was in. I’m leaving right now.”
“Well, I can’t wait for you. I told everyone I’d meet them at half past. It’s my party. I can’t turn up late.”
“OK, OK, I’ll meet you there, then. I’ll come home, grab a quick shower, have a quick shave, phone Vince and Matty to remind them where they’re going, and I’ll meet you there.”
“Danny, I can’t believe this. Shit, I can’t… look, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you when you get there.”
And then she puts down the phone.
I go as fast as I can. I run home, jump in the shower, slap on some Black and White, change into my Levi’s and my Carharrt hoody all in twenty minutes flat. I just have to wrap Alison’s presents then I’m done. I just have to find where she keeps the Sellotape then I’m done. It’s not in the drawer with all the take away menus in it. It’s not in the toolbox with the screwdriver set her dad bought us that we’ve never used. It’s not with her office stuff. It’s in the food cupboard. Behind the pickled onions. Of course. Stupid of me.
I’m done. I ended up buying Alison a silver bracelet that I can’t really afford but I know she’ll really like because she pointed it out to me a couple of weeks ago when we were out shopping for hooded tops. It’s a bit crap, I suppose, getting her something that she’s already seen, but it’ll have to do. I can’t do anything about the flowers now either, but there’s always the guide to Bruges. And the Thomas the Tank Engine cake.
I leave the presents on the kitchen table and head off to The Medicine Bar. It’s almost nine o’clock.
Something tells me it’s going to be a long night.
The second I arrive at The Medicine Bar I have the overwhelming urge to run away. It hits me in the stomach like a bad prawn, and it’s all I can do not to turn on my heels and scarper. I can just make out Alison through the window. She’s sat on a long leather sofa at the back of the room and she’s surrounded by a dozen or so people, most of whom I don’t know. The table in front of them is littered with empty bottles: champagne bottles, beer bottles, wine bottles and towers of sticky shot glasses, and it’s clear that there’s been some serious drinking going on. Alison likes places like this, places you can order a martini dry enough to make your toes curl.
It looks to me like she’s been holding court. The girls are fussing round her like mother hens, and a slick-looking bloke in a beige Smedley is offering her a smoke and trying to look down the front of her party dress. I want to punch his face in. I want to punch him for wearing beige and ogling my girlfriend’s breasts but mostly I just want to run away.
“What are you doing?”
“Watching.”
“Watching?”
“Yeah, take a look. I’m an hour and a half late for Alison’s party. I think she wants to stab me. What do you think?”
Vince gets to work. He doesn’t bother asking me why I’m an hour and a half late for my own girlfriend’s party1 doubt the question even crosses his mind he doesn’t bother asking me why I’m stood outside spying on her from the pavement,
he just recognises that I’m in the shit and sets about giving my predicament his full attention.
We make an odd tableau, the pair of us: hands in pockets, noses pressed up against the plate glass, immune to the scornful looks from the polenta posse making their Upper Street passeggiata behind us, immune to the braying trendies who flicker in and out of focus in front of us, immune to everything but the problem in hand.
After a while Vince turns back to me and shakes his head. He takes a short, sharp breath through his nostrils and he says:
“You’re dead meat. Everyone knows what you done: the girls think you’re a bastard; the blokes think you’re a tosser and the git in the beige is trying to take advantage of your girlfriend’s weakened emotional state.”
“That’s what I thought,” I say, rolling up my sleeves and heading for the door. “That’s exactly what I thought.”
It’s hot inside. The bar is heaving with lumped-up twenty somethings doing the Saturday night shuffle, and I can feel tiny beads of sweat beginning to break out across my forehead. I feel dizzy, dizzy from the heat and the adrenalin, and I’m quite relieved when Vince steps in and advises me not to bother with the whole punch-up thing.
“It’s not like I wouldn’t be right behind you, mate,” he says, offering me a roll-up. “It’s just that you might end up making things worse.”
“How could it be any worse?” I say, wiping my forehead on my sleeve. “And anyway, Alison would love it if I got into a fight over her. Women love that kind of thing.”
“Come off it, you’d just embarrass her.”
What he really means is that I’d just embarrass myself, but he’s too loyal to say so.
“All right,” I say, noticing Kate and Matty over by the bar, ‘we’ll have a couple of beers and then I’ll go over and make the peace. After I’ve calmed down a bit.”
Vince thinks this is a good idea.
“Danny! Where’ve you been? Come over here and give me a big sloppy snog!”
Matty’s girlfriend is your classic squealer; the kind of girl who makes you wonder what she sounds like when she comes. She’s short and thin and pretty if you like that no bra, pierced navel, glittery make-up kind of thing and she’s one of those overly affectionate people who always insist on greeting everyone they meet by kissing them full on the mouth. It doesn’t matter if she knows you or not: a moment’s hesitation and you’re over; a second’s indecision and she’s lunging at you with her pouty red lips and smearing makeup all over your evening stubble.
Just my luck: the moment our lips meet and she starts to wind her skinny arms round my neck I suddenly notice Beige Jumper Man pointing me out from across the room. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He times it perfectly: holds out his finger like a dagger and waits for Alison to turn round and clock me. Our eyes meet. She holds my gaze for a split second and then she turns away.
Vince was right. I’m a dead man.
“I’m sorry,” I say, squeezing in next to her. “I completely screwed up.”
“So what’s new?” she says, draining her glass.
“That’s a bit harsh,” I say. “I mean, things just got away from me, that’s all.”
“How could you do this?” she says, reaching for my beer. “Where have you been all this time?”
“Look, don’t make a scene, OK. I’m sorry, everything just got out of—’
“Don’t make a scene! Fuck you,” she says quietly. And then she gets up and says she needs to take a piss.
“Woof, woof.” “You what?”
“Woof, woof. Still in the dog-house, then?”
This is Ruth. Of all Alison’s friends I like her the least. She’s tight and pushy and mean spirited and there’s only so long you can forgive someone for being a cow just because they’ve got wonky fallopian tubes.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll work it out,” I say. “More of a misunderstanding than anything.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” she says, breathing smoke at me across the table. “Alison’s been in such a rut lately but she’s so much happier now you’ve decided to give up the music and get yourself a job. She’s so relieved. We all knew you had to come to your senses sooner or later. I mean, it’s not like your band is actually going anywhere, is it?”
I don’t know what to say. I notice that the right side of her mouth moves up and down as she talks and that the left side always stays perfectly still. I notice that Vince has been listening to every word she’s said.
“And anyway,” she continues, “I know some people in tele sales who might be prepared to give you a go if you fancy it. Call me next week and I’ll pass on the numbers.”
I know the kind of job Ruth is talking about: fifteen grand a year and two weeks’ holiday that you’re too scared to take; free membership to Commuters Anonymous and a lifetime subscription to the ‘team’. That’s the kind of person they want: someone who’ll put up with any old shit and let everyone else take all the credit. Someone who’s prepared to whoop and holler and suck up and cold-sell and wear the company logo like a tattoo where their individuality used to be.
I don’t care how bad things get. I don’t care that I’m not actually qualified to do anything else. The day I take a job which advertises for team players is the day I set fire to my own small intestines with lighter fluid.
Vince has fucked off somewhere with Kate and Matty and I’m starting to wonder where Alison has got to. I’ve been
making polite conversation about house prices and car prices and trekking holidays to Vietnam for almost an hour now, and it feels like my head is about to explode. No one wants to talk about anything interesting like James Caan in Rollerball or new ways to kill Jamie Oliver. If they mention a film it’s only because they’ve read about it in the Guardian and they’re still wondering what they’re supposed to think. If they mention music it’s only to say how it’s all gone downhill over the last couple of years, and you know it’s only a matter of time before one of them wants to talk about Coldplay or Travis or Badly Drawn Boy.
“Hey, here’s an interesting piece of pop trivia,” I say, addressing the table in general. “Did you know it was Joe Dolce’s “Shaddap You Face” that kept Ultravox from having a number-one single with “Vienna” in 1981 … I mean, imagine that.”
No one seems to know what I’m talking about, and for some insane reason I suddenly decide this would be a good time to start singing.
“You know, it went like this: “What’s a ma dda you, HEY! Godda no respect, HEY! Whadda you think you do? It’s a nice a place, HEY! It’s a nice a face. AHHHhhh… sbudupa yer… faa ace
Everyone is looking at me like I’ve just farted. Maybe I should have left out the ‘heys’. Maybe this is a good time to go and see what’s happened to Alison.
I look everywhere. I comb the bar from top to bottom (including a very informative diversion to the girls’ bogs) and I eventually find her sitting outside on the pavement. She’s crouched up against the window with her knees to her chest; smoking a cigarette and calmly watching the world go by.