Authors: Mike Gayle
Even Nosferatu seemed
to be smiling
I
t was now nine days since I’d last seen or heard from Mel. The advice of my mum, sister, brother-in-law and flatmate had been rattling around my head for days without having any effect on me other than giving me a headache. I couldn’t escape the feeling that at the age of twenty-eight the answer to my predicament really should’ve come from inside me and not from friends and relatives. Which is why, I decided, that even though I still wasn’t sure how I felt about marriage, it was time for Mel and me to talk and come up with a solution that we could both live with.
“Oh, it’s you.”
It was Julie who answered the door to Mel’s flat. She was the only person in the world who could make “Oh, it’s you” sound like “Burn in hell, you unfortunate bag of crap.” It was a bad sign that she’d taken over door-answering duties, because it meant without question that she’d been spending every second since The Proposal at Mel’s, rubbishing my good name.
Julie—whom I referred to in private as Nosferatu, Princess of Darkness, for no other reason than it made me laugh—was Mel’s best friend and my archenemy. The first time I met her I was incredibly nervous, because Mel had told me that if I could pass the Julie Test, then meeting her parents would be a piece of cake. Over poached oysters with iceberg butter sauce at Julie’s house, I watched her mentally ticking off the points against me as I revealed I was a temp (-4), had dropped out of university (-2), was constantly broke (-6), considered amusing people in the back room of a pub was a smart career move (-4) and was doing little to rectify any of my point-minusing situations (-10).
At the end of the evening it was clear to both me and Mel that I’d failed the Julie Test with a record-breakingly bad score. I remember thinking,
If my performance tonight is anything to go by, Mel’s parents are really going to hate me.
Julie, however, loved Mel just like Thelma loved Louise, although without the lesbian subtext, and so for her sake she tolerated me as if I was a bad habit—like nail-biting or not washing your hands after you’ve used the toilet—that Mel just couldn’t break.
Julie lived with and was engaged to Mark, whom I quite liked but for the fact I was totally intimidated by his success. He made music videos for hideously famous bands, was always traveling to glamorous places and to top it all was two years younger than me—which galled me immensely. Mark was one of life’s doers. While I’d been drinking cider in the park and chasing girls who didn’t know better, as a teenager he’d been writing and shooting short films on a Super 8 camera. We had no common ground whatsoever. Occasionally when we all went out together he’d try and draw me into a conversation about high-performance sports cars, trekking holidays in China or his latest music video, and every time without fail I’d just look at him vacantly, desperately hoping that at some point he would ask me what was going on in
EastEnders
so that I’d have something to contribute to the conversation.
Together, Mark and Julie were couple perfection at its Two-newspapers-on-a-Sunday-his-’n’-hers-Birkenstocks-three-foreign-holidays-a-year-and-smug-about-it worst. But there was no escaping them because we “double coupled” all the time, usually at Julie’s insistence. I never understood why she stipulated that we did so many things together. It was as if because she and Mark were a couple they were only allowed to socialize with other couples for fear of catching single-people disease.
“All right, Jules?” I said chirpily. Julie loathed being called Jules more than anything. “Are you going to let me in or what?”
Guardedly Julie opened the door to the communal hallway of the house and let me in, but I could tell she was in two minds about whether to do so. “What do
you
want?”
“I’ve just popped round to hear what you think’s wrong with me this week.”
“How long have you got?” she snorted, flicking a stray strand of strawberry blonde hair out of her eyes.
“As long as you want,” I said, grimacing.
She let me in and we squared up to each other in the hallway like two gunfighters at the O.K. Corral. As I stared deeply into her defiant pale blue eyes, I was reminded of something I’d read once in a magazine. Apparently when two animals hold each other’s direct gaze for longer than a minute, the laws of nature state they will either tear each other to pieces or copulate. The thought of having carnal knowledge of Julie unsettled me so much that I began to smile nervously.
“Well, for starters,” said Julie, ignoring the grin fixed to my face, “you’re a selfish pig. You have no respect for Mel or her feelings.”
“And?”
“You’re inconsiderate.”
“And?”
“You do that hateful thing where you roll your eyes.”
“And?”
“You put everything else that’s in your life before Mel.”
“Errrrrrrrr!” I made the annoying quiz-buzzer-type noise from
Just a Minute
on Radio 4. “Repetition. I think you’ll find putting everything that’s in my life before Mel is the same as being selfish.”
Julie scowled threateningly. She was officially angry now, which in an incredibly petty sort of way made me happy. “You
would
say that you—”
“You don’t know anything about me, Julie,” I interrupted. “You just think you do. I do respect Mel and her feelings, I don’t put everything that’s in my life before her . . .” I paused briefly. “But I admit I do occasionally leave the toilet seat up, which might be interpreted as inconsiderate, and I definitely do that thing where I roll my eyes, but that doesn’t exactly make me Darth Vader in a pair of Levi’s, does it?”
Julie screwed up her face angrily like a bulldog chewing a wasp. “I don’t know what she ever saw in you . . .” she began furiously, but then her voice trailed off.
Pants,
I thought nervously.
If she’s not going to tear me to pieces maybe she is going to have sex with me after all.
Fortunately I soon discovered what had stopped her outburst so abruptly. It was Mel.
“Oh, please, you two,” sighed Mel. “Can’t you ever just give it a rest?”
Like a petulant child Julie threw a thunderous “It was all his fault” glance in my direction while I cranked my ever-so-angelic smile up in the hope it would make Julie melt, or combust, or whatever it is that vampires do when they’ve been defeated.
Mel was wearing her it’s-Saturday-therefore-I-shop clothes—jeans, white T-shirt, and a long thick woollen hooded top. She’d had a haircut, too, and it made her face look that little bit more beautiful. I resisted a genuine compulsion to tell her that she looked stunning, because I knew she’d only think I was trying to flatter her. So instead I smiled warmly, hoping that the upward curling of the corners of my lips would somehow convey my keen appreciation. Mel didn’t return my smile, though. Her expression revealed neither approval nor disapproval of my appearance in her hallway, although the manner in which she sat wearily on the bottom stair was a strong indicator that I was far from being back in favor.
“How are you?” she said abruptly.
“Okay,” I mumbled. “How are you?”
Silence.
“How’s work?”
Silence.
I hated arguments like this. I wanted her to stop being angry with me. “I love you, you know,” I said, kneeling down in front of her.
“So you say.” She took off her jacket. “Is that all you came to tell me?”
I looked into her eyes, trying to find the real her. The Mel sitting in front of me was Hard Mel, an alter ego she sometimes utilized to stop herself from forgiving me when she knew she really shouldn’t. It was true that she was too forgiving and perhaps I did deserve the harsh treatment I was receiving, but even so, I thought this was a bit much. The offense of Not Knowing When to Marry Your Long-term Girlfriend was new legislation and I felt quite strongly that the marathon begging, shuffling and scraping I’d done in the past week was more than recompense.
So I waited, saying nothing. The silence was so uncomfortable even Julie felt the need to disappear upstairs to Mel’s flat on the pretext of getting a glass of water. The longer I said nothing, the more Hard Mel stared through me like I didn’t exist. Soon whatever regret I had about the way I’d treated Mel was swallowed up whole by resentment. What I’d done wrong was no longer the point. It wasn’t about apology, making up or explanation. All that counted now was winning.
“This is pointless.” I sighed. “You’re not in the right mood to talk. Okay. I’ll come back later.”
1–0
In a single swoop I’d claimed the moral high ground, belittled her feelings and made myself out to be the last remaining reasonable person left on Planet Earth.
“You can’t stand being wrong, can you?” retorted Mel. “You’re not man enough to admit when you’ve made a mistake.”
1–1
The moral high ground that I craved so highly was all Mel’s. She’d pinpointed my insecurities and cast slurs upon my masculinity. I was in great danger of looking stupid.
“Whatever,” I sighed exasperatedly.
2–1
Argument shorthand for “I’m pretending that I can’t be bothered to argue with you.”
I’m bound to win now,
I thought spitefully, and then Mel started to cry.
Game over.
This wasn’t fair at all. “Whatever” wasn’t a phrase worthy of tears. Mel had cheated by using the crying card when I hadn’t even provoked it. Most of our big arguments ended with tears. She’d say something horrible. I’d say something equally horrible. She’d cry. And I’d feel guilty. Tears were the secret weapon from which I had no defense.
One day,
I decided,
I’m going to get into an argument with Mel and burst into tears before she does, just so she can see how it feels.
I hated seeing her cry. Absolutely hated it. I wanted to put my arms around her and tell her I was sorry, but I knew she’d just reject my peace offering. So instead, brushing past Julie—who had returned to watch the intriguing spectacle of two people not talking—I shook my head in her direction in a high-minded “I pity you” manner, and opened the door.
I was—mentally speaking—already huffing my way down Clapham High Street, moaning to myself about how I was never going to understand women and their strange ways, when Mel shouted out after me, “What
did
you come round here for anyway, Duffy? Just to show me how much I can’t stand you?”
I searched for something equally horrible to say, but the genuine hurt I heard in her voice thankfully brought me to my senses, so that the worst thing I could find in the deep well of regret into which I was currently sinking was, “I came to tell you, yes, I want to marry you.”
This was actually a bit of a lie.
Well, not a lie, but not exactly the truth.
Kind of ninety-seven percent truth and three percent total fabrication.
I did want to marry her—just not now—not yet. The words I’d said instead, however, had sort of leaped from my lips and now they were out I was almost proud of them. I’d never quite understood how people came to make decisions of this magnitude: “Let’s have a baby”; “Let’s get married”; “Let’s commit suicide.” These are all monumental life-changing decisions from which there is no return. I’d always believed it would take a certain type of strength from a certain type of person to say, “Let’s get married,” so I was pleased that even I, a metaphorical seven-stone weakling in a world crammed full of emotional heavyweights, had been able to cut it with the big boys.
Hard Mel disappeared instantly, as did my incarnation as “Stupid Boy.” In their places were the Mel whom I knew and loved so much, and the good old me who thought Mel was the best thing since toast. She raced toward me and wrapped her arms around me tightly, making me feel like more of a man than I’d felt in a long time. As she kissed me fervently, again I realized I’d just made all her dreams come true.
If only it was always this easy to make people you love happy,
I thought. Sometimes I felt like my whole reason for being was to fill the lives of those I loved with disappointment—it was a nice change to do the opposite.
I was happy.
Mel was happy.
Even Nosferatu seemed to be smiling.
Everything was going to be all right.
The Six Million Dollar Man
T
he reactions to the news of my forthcoming nuptials were strange to say the least. My mum burst into tears. “I’m so happy,” she said through her joy-filled sobs. “I’m just so happy for the two of you.” She dropped the phone about a million times, and made me tell her the details over and over again as if she couldn’t believe it the first time.
I went round to Vernie’s to tell her, and her initial comment was a terse, “About time too,” which made me laugh because I knew deep down her excitement was on a par with my mother’s. Charlie congratulated me with a hearty handshake and said he thought my getting married was the best news he’d heard in ages.
Dan, needless to say, thought my getting married was a bad idea but didn’t say so because he knew that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. So he gave me a kind of backslappy hug, cracked a joke about advertising in
Penthouse
for a new flatmate and promised to arrange a celebratory drink on Friday night. As Mel had arranged a quick “I’m-engaged-isn’t-it-great?” drink on the same night, Dan’s plans fitted in perfectly with the weekend schedule Mel and I had prepared for ourselves, now that we’d been upgraded into the serious-couple club.
S
itting in the Haversham on Friday night, Dan and Charlie decided unanimously that the whole evening’s entertainment would be at my expense, despite my having been an engaged man for only six days. For the next few hours I was the butt of their jokes, jibes and mockery, which was actually quite reassuring in its own way—laughter was the perfect antidote to any apprehension I was feeling about marriage. The evening’s conversation went a little something like this . . .
8:23
P.M.
“What is it about weddings that women like so much?” asked Dan.
“The dresses?” suggested Charlie.
“You could have a point there,” said Dan. “What have all weddings got in common apart from the bride and groom?”
“A posh dress!” replied Charlie.
I tried my hardest not to become tainted by the sheer ludicrousness of their conversation but I couldn’t help myself. “You’re not seriously trying to tell me that women the world over have been getting married just so they can get a new frock? What about Elizabeth Taylor? Married more times than I can remember and she can afford as many posh frocks as she likes.”
“Ahhh,” exclaimed Dan astutely, “but the wedding means she’s always got somewhere nice to wear it.”
9:28
P.M.
Charlie played question master. “Why do you think blokes are so scared of commitment?”
“Simple,” answered Dan. “It’s the Daisy Duke principle.” With the utterance of those words Dan had our attention in full. For everyone around the table and probably any member of our generation, Daisy Duke—of
The Dukes of Hazzard
fame—was a byword for truth, beauty and cheek-revealing denim hotpants. “In our formative years we’re exposed to a huge number of amazingly beautiful women,” continued Dan. “We men become conditioned to seek out perfection and spend our lives in pursuit of the ultimate babe. Of course this search will prove fruitless because perfection doesn’t exist. But that won’t stop us wandering through life nomadically, refusing to put down roots until our quest is over.”
“We are to be pitied not chided,” chipped in Charlie. “Ours is a thankless task.”
“When you think about it,” said Dan, “finding the perfect partner is a bit like a game of pontoon. I mean, you get your cards and you make your decision. Do you stick or twist? Do you play safe and settle for nineteen or do you go all out for twenty-one, even if you might end up bust?”
“On a good day Vernie’s a twenty-one.” Charlie laughed. “Although I reckon she thinks I’m an eighteen. What do you reckon, Dan? Ever had a twenty-one?”
“Let’s think,” he said, mulling it over. “There was Cerys in college, she was a fourteen. Then there was Louise after that, who was probably a seventeen, but I think the closest I’ve ever come was with Meena.” He hesitated for a moment and took a sip of his beer. “She was definitely a twenty, but you know me, just like Kenny Rogers I’m a gambler. I had to go for the twenty-one. Didn’t seem right not to.”
“Mel’s my twenty-one,” I said, more to my pint than to my assembled friends. “She is the perfect hand.”
10:05
P.M.
It was Dan’s turn to pontificate. “Your conventional modern action hero doesn’t need a full-time woman, because they get in the way and reduce his ability to catch the bad guys and save the world from certain disaster. That’s why none of fiction’s greatest heroes are happily hitched. Discuss.”
I attempted to think of a betrothed hero and found it more difficult than I’d anticipated. “James Bond,” I said triumphantly after a few moments of deep thought. “He was married.”
“
Was
married,” said Dan. “In
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,
to be exact. He gets married but his wife gets killed near the end of the film by a bullet meant for JB. The subtext is obvious: James Bond cannot save the world and be an icon for young men the world over with a bird in tow. Plus, if you take the meaningless sex with all manner of exotic kung fu/spy/killer beauties out of James Bond, what have you got? Nothing but a middle-aged man acting like a teenager.”
“He’s right,” said Charlie. “Think about it, Duff.
Starsky and Hutch, Magnum, P.I.,
Dean Martin in
Matt Helm, Batman, Shaft,
Han Solo in
Star Wars
. . . Han
Solo,
I ask you.”
“All the guys in
The A-Team,
” added Dan.
“
The Six Million Dollar Man,
” I contributed reluctantly.
“Charlie from
Charlie’s Angels,
” added Charlie. Simultaneously Dan and I turned to him for an explanation.
“I’m pretty sure he was married,” I said. “Bosley was single I’ll give you that but I reckon Charlie was definitely married.”
“He’s right you know,” said Dan. “Charlie from
Charlie’s Angels
is married. I think they even mentioned it in one show.”
Charlie refused to be convinced. “As the only person here who has a wife let me tell you. Any bloke who employs three of the Seventies’ hottest women to fight crime isn’t going to be married. There’s no way his wife would let him get away with it. Could you imagine Vernie letting me go off to weekend conferences with Sabrina, Kris, and Kelly. I don’t think so!”
“You could have a point there, mate,” said Dan. “It would be asking for trouble. But anyway, we’re digressing. All of these heroes—bachelor men the lot of them,” said Dan. “It has to be the way for real men to exist. No ties. No hassle. Just fighting crime and babes on tap.”
“Okay,” I countered. I’d been racking my brains trying to find married fictional heroes. “What about Bruce Willis in the
Die Hard
films? He’s married.”
“You’re kidding,” said Dan, laughing. “How long’s a marriage going to last when your husband keeps getting himself into the kind of scrapes where he loses his shoes and has to run around upstate New York wearing nothing but a vest?”
11:15
P.M.
(Time, ladies and gentlemen, please!)
“I’m a pretty amazing bloke,” said Dan, adopting a pompous tone of voice. “I’m a big hit with the ladies, I look the business—in short I am the bee’s knees. But”—he paused thoughtfully—“if you were to look through a selection of photographs of me when I was seventeen you’d say to yourself, ‘Why upon my life, cool Dan is in fact nothing but a geek! Look at that haircut, his dodgy Iron Maiden T-shirt, his pitiful attempt to grow a moustache!’ ”
“So what’s your point?” I sighed, as if I hadn’t already guessed.
“Marriage is a lot like a photograph. The person you get hitched to is a snapshot of who you are at the time. Granted, you might think she’s the best thing ever, but think about it . . . imagine if you got married to the first girl you fell in love with.”
“What?” said Charlie.
“Imagine her. There you are seventeen years old. You’re in love. You think it’s never going to end. But imagine meeting her now with her big hair, marble-washed jeans and her Amnesty International membership card. Would you want to be married to that?”
I tutted despondently. “You’re presuming that she’s stayed the same. You don’t know that. If you’ve changed, then she’s bound to have changed too.”
“Of course,” said Dan. “But into what?”
11:31
P.M
. Inside the Archway Fish and Chip Bar across the road from the Haversham
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with living together,” said Dan as we waited for our chips and curry sauce. “It’s the root of all evil in every relationship: you take each other for granted. You assume she’s always going to be there, so you stop putting in the effort. She assumes you’re never going to change and you go out of your way to prove her right. You start treating each other like furniture—and what’s worse, not even furniture that you actually like.”
T
he phone was ringing. I looked at the glow-in-the-dark alarm clock Mel had given me for my twenty-sixth birthday, only to discover it was 2:57
A.M.
I attempted to go back to sleep, but the beer, chips and curry sauce churning in my stomach, combined with the mad person at the end of the telephone who clearly refused to believe we were asleep, made resting impossible. Eyes half closed I got up and walked along the hallway, throwing a menacing squint in the direction of Dan’s bedroom as I passed.
I bet he’s unplugged the answerphone so he could use the toaster in the living room again,
I thought, scowling. I was right. There next to the phone was the toaster with a piece of cold toast in it. I picked up the toast, took a bite and answered the phone, still chewing.
“Hello?” I said, about to take another bite of my toast.
“Isssh meee,” slurred an unquestionably inebriated Mel.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, as if I didn’t know the answer.
“Aaaallcoooohol,” she said desperately. “Too much . . . think am going to die . . . come round please . . . now.”
“But it’s three o’clock in the morning,” I protested. “I’m knackered. I’ve only been asleep a few hours.”
“Oh, please come, Duff,” she whined. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“You’re not going to be sick,” I reassured her. “Just take a couple of paracetamols, go to bed and I’ll see you in the morning. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, repeating my instructions with a childlike innocence. “Take a couple of paracetamols, go back to bed and . . . bleuuuurghhh!” The sentence ended abruptly with the unmistakable sound of projectile vomit hitting the telephone mouthpiece.
I
t was a quarter to four in the morning by the time the taxi pulled up outside Mel’s. I got out, handed the driver twenty pounds and told him to keep the change. I didn’t usually tip but I was grateful that he hadn’t made any comment on my Manchester United football shirt and paisley dressing gown. Too ill to open the door when I rang the buzzer, Mel hurled the front-door key out of the upstairs’ bedroom window and I let myself in.
She was lying on the sofa, still dressed in her work clothes, with a washing-up bowl next to her head and a look of sheer biliousness across her features. “Oh, Duffy!” she said, employing the quiet self-pitying whiny voice of the repentant drunkard. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
“Of course not,” I comforted, glancing at the carrot-based contents of the washing-up bowl. I kissed her lightly on the cheek and removed the bowl to the kitchen. I returned with a glass of water, which I made her sip while I stroked her forehead. While I attempted to scrub a spot of sick off the carpet with a dishcloth, she laid her head back on a cushion and made small murmuring noises.
“How did you get like this?” I said, and sat down beside her.
With her eyes closed quite firmly she began her sorry tale. “It was only going to be a quick one after work. Just to celebrate our engagement . . .” she whimpered. “And then Julie told me about a new bar in Poland Street and then everyone thought we should go there and so we did and they kept buying me drinks and I couldn’t refuse, could I?” She opened her eyes. “I couldn’t, honestly, Duff.”
“I know, babe,” I said, nodding. “What were you drinking?”
“Vuuurkahanoorraaahhh,” she mumbled.
“What?”
“Vodka and orange,” she repeated guiltily.
“Oh, Mel,” I chided gently. “You should know better.” Everyone has a loopy juice, a lethal alcoholic cocktail that releases the beast within. For me it was Cinzano and lemonade, for Dan it was cider and black, but for Mel it was vodka and orange. At various times in the past under its influence she had ruined a dress from Ghost trying to climb a fence, lost a purse containing at least fifty quid, and told me for the very first time that she loved me. They were an amusing but volatile double act. “You said never again after last time,” I reminded her. The last time being Dan’s birthday six months ago when after a large number of vodka and oranges, she’d got up on a table in the Soho All Bar One and started dancing in a provocative manner to Shirley Bassey’s “Hey Big Spender.”
“I know,” she said. Her voice was even more pitiful than before. “I’m sorry.”
I kissed her forehead. “You did have a proper meal before you started drinking didn’t you?”
“Dry-roasted peanuts,” she said sorrowfully. “It was all I could find.” I had to laugh. With a stomach packed with nothing more substantial than peanuts, and seven hours’ worth of vodka and orange juice, it was a wonder her brain hadn’t melted, let alone her stomach regurgitated its contents. “I think I’m going to be sick again,” she whimpered.
I looked around for the washing-up bowl but I’d left it in the kitchen. “Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“Can you walk?”
She shook her head.
“Right, I’ll have to carry you then.” Picking her up in my arms, I carried her to the bathroom and placed her on the floor. On her knees she crawled to the toilet, lifted up the seat and threw up while I held her hair out of her face, then collapsed in a heap on the floor.