by Tom Ellen
But then she glances through into the living room at the Christmas tree, and shakes her head, as if remembering that this is not traditionally the season for big, awful, final announcements.
‘Anyway, we can talk later,’ she says again. ‘And don’t worry about the thing tonight – I’ll think of something. Tell everyone you needed to put the decorations up, maybe.’ She looks again at the naked tree. ‘Actually, that wouldn’t technically be lying, would it?’
‘I’ll do it as soon as you’re gone, I promise. And the presents.’
She nods. Then she steps outside, shuts the door and she’s gone. And even though nothing was actually said, I can still feel the storm clouds gathering inside my head. We can talk later. She said that twice. But talk about what?
The word DIVORCE stamps itself onto my brain, making me physically flinch. Is that what she wants? Could it even secretly be what I want? The thought of it makes my stomach lurch, but I don’t know if it’s the idea of losing Daphne, or the shame of being divorced at thirty-four.
Another failure to add to my already ridiculously long list.
But I can’t think about this stuff right now. Daphne’s parents, sister, brother-in-law and their kids are all arriving at midday tomorrow, and there’s still a hell of a lot to be done before then. I should really head straight up to the attic to get the decorations, then sort the tree out and crack on with wrapping the presents.
That’s what I should do.
Instead, though, I decide to go and get drunk.
Chapter Two
Christmas Eve is pretty much the only time you can guarantee that Harv will be available at short notice for a pint. On Christmas Eve, there are no swanky club nights to attend or Tough Mudders to endure, and presumably the dating apps are pretty quiet, too.
We meet in The Raven, a grotty little pub in Crouch Hill whose grottiness is trumped by its exact equidistance between my place in Harlesden and Harv’s in Stoke Newington. It’s already heaving when I arrive: packed to bursting point with rowdy office workers, all draped in tinsel from their Christmas lunches. I squeeze past an old bloke with a scraggly beard who is trying to flog an extremely unconvincing Rolex to a pair of drunken businessmen.
Harv is already at the bar, wearing a parka so large it resembles an unzipped sleeping bag. He waves me over with a tenner.
‘You all right? What d’you want?’
‘Just a beer. Whatever you’re having.’
He wrinkles his forehead. ‘I’m not having a beer, mate. D’you know there’s two hundred calories in a pint of beer? You might as well have a Zinger Burger.’ He taps his stomach, which looks impressively washboardy even through his T-shirt. ‘I’m seeing this girl at the moment who’s a fitness instructor,’ he says. ‘She’s full of these facts and figures. We were talking last night about how drinking Guinness is literally like drinking a pint of lard.’
‘Sounds like a very erotic relationship.’
‘Yeah, the conversation can get quite boring,’ he admits. ‘But the sex is pretty great.’
I look again at Harv’s perfectly flat stomach. I still can’t get my head around how all blokes nowadays are suddenly insanely ripped. It seemed to happen pretty much overnight, about eight years ago, and I was apparently the only male on the planet who wasn’t forewarned. When I met Harv at university, he was fifteen stone and subsisted entirely on Carling Black Label and chicken nuggets. Now he looks like Ryan Gosling’s stunt double.
It’s fine for guys in their twenties, who were raised on Instagram and Love Island; they don’t know any different. But these mid-thirties blokes who suddenly become protein-guzzlers – they’re old enough to remember the halcyon pre-David Beckham days, when young men were all pigeon-chested and Twiglet-armed. They’re selling the rest of us out, I reckon.
I order a Guinness just to piss Harv off.
We sit down at a table by the window, him sipping his vodka and tonic and me slurping my black lard. Another office Christmas party comes barrelling through the doors, all wearing badly torn cracker hats.
‘You going to your parents’ tomorrow, then?’ I ask Harv.
He nods. ‘My sister’s giving me a lift to Suffolk first thing. Are you round at your …’ He flinches and shakes his head. ‘Sorry, man. Wasn’t thinking.’
‘No, no, don’t worry.’
It’s been two years now, and I still forget myself from time to time. I’ll read some book or see something on TV and think, oh, Mum would like this, and then crumple as the realisation gut-punches me.
I wonder if that ever goes away. Probably not.
‘Are Daff’s lot coming to you, then?’ Harv asks.
‘Yep. I’m supposed to be doing the tree and the presents right now, but y’know …’ I hold up my pint and take a big sip.
‘Where is Daff?’
‘She’s at a work thing. I thought she wanted me to come, actually, but maybe not. She’s always on at me to meet new people.’
‘But you hate new people.’
‘Exactly.’
We both laugh. It feels comforting to fall back into our old groove: me as the grumpy, shy one, Harv as the buoyant extrovert. It’s a dynamic that’s been in play since we first met at uni. Occasionally I worry that it’s become a crutch; a performance we put on for each other because we don’t have anything else to talk about. I wonder whether if we met today – stripped of all our shared memories and in-jokes – we’d have anything in common at all. But right now it feels nice to slip back into that tried-and-tested role play – like pulling on an old jumper or something.
Harv starts rambling on about work – he does something in social media, though I’ve never been exactly sure what – and I suddenly want to tell him everything. I want to spill my guts about Daphne and Mum and the messages from Alice, and how I’m starting to feel like my whole life has frozen on screen and I’ve no idea which combination of keys will reboot it. But I don’t know how to even start that conversation. I’ve known Harv fifteen years – he was my best man, for God’s sake – but we never really talk about stuff like that. I don’t think we ever did.
When I overhear Daff speaking to her female friends I’m always amazed at the sheer range of topics they cover. They can get from small talk to deep-and-meaningful within seconds. Whereas when I went on holiday last year with Harv and a couple of other mates, we spent all four days testing each other’s knowledge of football and films and nineties hip hop. I’m not complaining; it was brilliant. I guess women see their friends as profound, complex human beings, while men see theirs as walking quiz machines.
Still, I’m half a pint of Guinness down and Harv has paused to look at his phone, so I decide to give it a go.
‘Yeah, thing is, actually, Harv, I’m sort of feeling a bit … down at the moment, mate.’
He looks up at me. For some reason – possibly to cushion its emotional bluntness – I’ve delivered this statement in a comedy Scouse accent. I have never even been to Liverpool.
‘Ah, don’t be down, mate,’ Harv says, mimicking my Steven Gerrard twang.
‘Well … I am a bit,’ I reply, still inexplicably Liverpudlian.
‘Ah, mate …’ He sips his drink. ‘Don’t be.’
This isn’t really going anywhere. This is just two men having the world’s dullest conversation in an accent neither of them can pull off.
But I suddenly, desperately, want to find a way to actually talk to him. Because it’s too much, keeping all this stuff locked up in my head. It feels like a dam is about to burst somewhere inside me, and fifteen years’ worth of suppressed emotions are about to stream out onto the table between us.
I’m mentally scrambling about for a decent inroad to this outpouring when Harv smirks and shoves his phone in my face.
‘Look at this … Honestly, Mourinho is such a dick.’
I scan the news story, in which Mourinho does, to be fair, come off quite dickishly. Harv slips his phone back into his pocket and grins. ‘OK, random one:
d’you reckon, off the top of our heads, we could name every World Cup winner from 1930 on?’
I stamp a smile across my face, and manage to shove down all the sadness and guilt and grief that was about to come spilling out of my mouth. ‘I reckon we could give it a go,’ I say.
He thumps the table. ‘Right. I’ll get another round in first. Although technically, it’s your turn …’
I hand him a tenner and watch as he squeezes through the crowd towards the bar.
And that’s when I hear a gravelly chuckle from over my shoulder: ‘Unlucky there, my friend. You were so close …’
Chapter Three
I turn around to see that the scraggly-bearded Rolex salesman is now sitting in the booth behind us.
He’s wearing an ill-fitting electric-blue suit that has definitely seen better decades, and a tie covered in little cartoon reindeer. His box of moody watches is on the table in front of him, next to a half-drunk pint. He’s spinning a beer mat on its side and grinning broadly at me through his rust-coloured tangle of facial hair.
‘Sorry … what was that, mate?’ I say.
He takes a sip of his beer. ‘It just felt like you were right on the brink of opening up to your friend there. And then he walked off. Rotten luck.’
‘Right, yeah. I mean, it was sort of a private conversation, but …’
The watch-seller shrugs. ‘Oh, I wasn’t listening or anything. Just couldn’t help overhearing, that’s all.’
He smiles at me again, blue eyes twinkling under his unruly coppery-grey hair. There’s something familiar about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s possibly the vaguely Bill Nighy vibe he gives off – all wiry and crumpled and mischievous. His age is impossible to place, though: he could be anywhere from fifty to about seventy-five.
Still, I’ve been cornered by enough pub bores in my life to know exactly how this conversation will pan out if I keep engaging. After a couple more pleasantries, this bloke will undoubtedly whip his chair round to our table and spend the rest of the night regaling us with long-winded anecdotes, while occasionally attempting to flog us a watch.
‘OK. Well, fair enough,’ I say. ‘Have a good night, then.’
I start to turn back round, but the guy speaks again.
‘Christmas is a time for reflection, isn’t it? Getting things off your chest.’
I sigh. I’m not in the mood for a heart-to-heart with a total stranger – particularly not when I’ve just failed to initiate one with my best mate. But I also feel bad about leaving an obviously lonely old man hanging on Christmas Eve. So I turn back to face him.
‘How d’you mean?’
The watch-seller is now wearing a thoughtful smile and drumming his fingers on the box in front of him. ‘You start to wonder about the bad decisions you’ve made in life, don’t you?’ he says. ‘Or the wrong turnings you might have taken.’ He stops drumming and looks me straight in the eye. ‘You start to wonder how things might have worked out differently for you. And whether – if you could go back and change things – you really would.’
I nod, now feeling slightly concerned that this bloke is some sort of mind-reader. I’m certain I’ve never seen him before, but for a split second I’m convinced that he knows me. That somehow he has access to my deepest thoughts and fears and secrets …
But then reality comes crashing back, and I remember that mind-reading watch salesmen don’t exist.
I try to catch Harv’s eye at the bar so that he hurries back quickly and gives me an excuse to end this conversation. ‘Yeah, anyway, listen, mate,’ I say. ‘I’d better—’
‘Is there anything you’d do?’ the old man interrupts. ‘If you could go back. Is there anything you wish you’d done differently?’
He’s staring at me with a weird intensity now, those blue eyes almost fizzing in their sockets. Out of nowhere, all that confusion and guilt and regret I’ve just managed to push down comes rushing straight back up. I think of the things I said to Mum before she died – the things I’d do anything to unsay. I think of what happened in Paris. I think about that night in the maze at uni – the night I met Daphne. My throat is parched suddenly, and my face feels boiling hot. ‘I guess … maybe there are things I’d do differently,’ I find myself saying.
The old man blinks and nods, still watching me with that odd, unreadable expression. And then suddenly his face brightens, and he raps the box with his knuckles. ‘So. Can I interest you in a watch, my friend?’
And there it is.
‘No, honestly, I’m fine, thanks.’
‘I notice you’re not wearing one. I reckon this little number would suit you perfectly …’ He opens the box and takes out a totally unremarkable wristwatch. No chunky silver frame or famous logo or complex features – just a plain white clock face with a black leather strap.
‘Really,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’
Harv finally catches my eye, and fails to suppress a smile as he watches me trying to fend off this aggressive entrepreneurial advance.
‘Oh, come on,’ the watch-seller says. ‘How else will you know when the clock strikes midnight and it’s finally Christmas Day?’
‘Well, I could just look at my phone.’
He bats this suggestion away with his hand. ‘Phone, schmone. Tell you what, I’ll give it to you. An early Christmas present.’
I laugh. ‘No, seriously, that’s very kind, but you don’t have to—’
He reaches across and slaps the watch onto the table in front of me. ‘I just have,’ he grins. ‘Merry Christmas. Go on, try it on. It’ll change your life, I guarantee it.’
There is clearly no way I’m getting out of this situation watchless, so I just decide to give the bloke whatever I can. ‘OK, look …’ I take out my wallet and peer inside to see what I can offer. But when I look back up, he’s already disappearing out of the door.
The watch is still on the table in front of me. I stare at it for a second and then fix it around my wrist. When I look closely, I spot straight away why he wanted to palm this one off: it’s not even working. The hands are frozen at one minute to twelve. I fiddle with the winding mechanism, but they don’t budge. His line about ‘when the clock strikes midnight’ suddenly makes sense: a little dig before he fobbed me off with a dud.
Harv returns bearing fresh drinks. ‘So. Who was your mate?’
I blink up at him, feeling slightly dazed now, as if I’ve just imagined the whole conversation. I consider telling him about my weird gut feeling that the old man somehow knew me. But I don’t want Harv to think I’ve totally lost the plot, so instead I just hold up my wrist. ‘Not sure who he was, but he gave me the greatest Christmas gift I’ve ever received. A broken watch.’
Harv laughs. ‘You get some proper weirdos in this pub.’ He takes a sip of his vodka and claps his hands together. ‘Anyway, let’s do this. Every World Cup winner since 1930 … and no checking our phones.’
‘All right, let’s go.’
With that, I push every thought of Daphne or Alice or Mum to the back of my mind, and focus all my mental energy on meaningless football trivia.
And when we say goodbye two drinks later, having successfully managed to name every World Cup-winning team in history (with the exception of Uruguay in 1950), I definitely don’t feel better. But I don’t feel worse either.
And that’s something, surely.
Chapter Four
I get home about half ten, and Daphne’s still not back.
She hasn’t texted, and my Guinness-addled brain immediately conjures an image of her and Rich stroking each other tenderly beside a roaring log fire, which has to be the least imaginative hypothetical adultery fantasy ever. Still, it does the trick: the thought of them at that party right now, drunk and flirting, makes me feel hot with anxiety.
I walk straight past the undecorated Christmas tree and into the kitchen, where I sit down and crack open the very expensive bottle of red Daphne bought specifically for tomorrow’s lunch.
I pour myself a large glass and check Facebook. There’s a new message. It’s from Alice.
Hey! Found out that my conference thingy is DEFINITELY on for next week so I will be down in London! They’re putting me up in the Hilton in Canary Wharf (fancyyyyy) so maybe we could meet for a drink there? Say, Tuesday 29th? Would be SO good to see you and catch up … ;-) xxx
I take a big gulp of wine and think: is this how it starts, then?
Is this how easy it is?
When I was a kid, the idea of Having An Affair seemed like an incredibly elaborate, complex, almost Machiavellian thing to do. In my head, I built Dad up to be some sort of evil genius who’d spent months planning this dark, terrible scheme that would rip all our lives in two. But maybe I was giving him too much credit. Maybe he stumbled into it without thinking. Maybe he was just frightened and lonely and confused. If so, then I guess I’ve inherited those traits from him. None of his talent, none of his charm; just the cowardly, rotten, arsehole bits.
I pour myself another glass and stare down at the message, wondering how to reply.
The whole thing is just so … odd. I hadn’t seen Alice for years – not since Paris – until I bumped into her at Marek from uni’s wedding a few months back. Daff wasn’t able to make it, and Alice was on her own, too; she’d just split up with her fiancé in Manchester and was there, in her own words, ‘to get as drunk and cynical as humanly possible’.
I’d been really nervous about seeing her again, but right from the off, she acted like nothing had happened. As if there was no reason for any awkwardness. She beckoned me across the lawn with a glass of champagne, and after three more, we were engaged in a lively debate about the ethics of switching dinner-table name cards. Before a conclusion had been satisfactorily reached, Alice had done it – ‘Uncle Steve’ was settling down oblivious on the other side of the marquee, and she was sitting in his seat beside me grinning like a mischievous kid.
