I return to my pork scratchings, consoling myself with the thought that this particular episode of the naff sitcom which is my life can’t possibly be anything like as tragic as the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner scenario playing out in the Jenkinses’ household even as we speak.
My inner optimist is wondering whether to have another crack at the forty-something divorcee who works the bar, but something tells me she’d find the prospect about as alluring as an all-male production of As You Like It. And anyway, Nikki could still make it. I didn’t get where I am today by giving up on lost causes.
I could lie to you and say that sitting alone in a pub is a new experience, but you wouldn’t believe me. It was once, though. The first occasion is engraved on my mind, nearly as deeply as the remark (the more hurtful for its casualness) which precipitated it: “Some of your friends are quite successful, Timbo, why aren’t you?”
Simon Butterworth came round in his old Renault. Cats was only in its 5 billionth year, so we had a couple of hours before my less than Purrfect Pussy got back from the theatre. You can count on Simon in a crisis. He’s a bloody good solicitor too. I could give you his number if you like. In fact, I’ve asked him to be my executor. In the event of my sudden demise (and God willing a regular glove up the arse and a few extra helpings of broccoli should keep the Grim Reaper at bay for a while yet) I’ve instructed him to seek and destroy my collection of pornography. I’d hate Mum to find it. Ten years ago this would have been such a Herculean task that I would have felt obliged to appoint Pickford’s as my executors, but the day after SOWINS and I got engaged – poor romantic fool that I was – I made a huge bonfire and burnt the lot. Considering it included several quite rare foreign issues, I suppose it was a wanton act of cultural vandalism.
Of course, SOWINS wouldn’t have had the guts to tell me to leave. That would have meant sharing responsibility for the failure of our marriage. She just kept dropping gentle hints like, “Maybe some time apart would do us good,” or, “There was a rather nice flat-share in yesterday’s Guardian – did you see it?” So it was I who was forced into the ridiculous subterfuge, and it wasn’t long before SOWINS had created an official version of events, in which she starred as the plucky, abandoned wife, and I guested as the pathetic commitment-phobe.
Simon went through SOWINS’s underwear drawer while I chucked a few clothes into my going-away bag and did the hoovering. I couldn’t decide whether to rearrange the magnetic letters on the fridge (yet another hint, I suspected, that she wanted kids) to spell ‘goodbye’. In the end there was only one o, and, knowing SOWINS, if I’d put ‘Godbye’ she would have thought I was trying to make some sort of pseudo-intellectual, theological comment.
Driving back across London, Simon tried to cheer me up by singing that song we wrote in the sixth form common room after the school production of HMS Pinafore:
♦
“We sail the ocean blue, And our saucy ship’s a tanker, And it’s clearly plain to see, Mr Willcock is a wanker.”
♦
Butters had only just met Yvonne (the putative replacement for the Purrfect Pussy). No man alive would have expected him to stay in and console his oldest friend at the expense of a night with a new woman. Rather than sit silently sobbing in Simon’s love-nest (every few minutes you could hear the distant rumble of the Northern Line) I decided to brave the pub opposite. Nowadays, drinking alone is no biggie, even all ponced up in this wedding suit. But that first time – when I wasn’t weeping wordlessly into my Worthington’s, that is – I felt obliged to perform an elaborate waiting-for-someone pantomime; looking at my watch every few minutes and turning round each time the door opened. I never was much of an actor.
“Last orders, ladies and gentlemen, please.”
“Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks.” Nikki’s definitely not going to show up now. My forty-first year to sodding heaven and all I’ve got to show for it is a twenty-five-yards swimming certificate and a rich crop of nasal hair. The barmaid’s tired announcement sends me on my customary, narcoleptic schlep to the bar. It also gets me started on another favourite obsession: last times.
Up to a certain age, life is all about new experiences: first love, first car (one and the same in Simon B’s case), first encounter with a stroppy tradesman. The terrifying thing about ‘last times’ is that, quite often, you don’t know that that’s what it is when you’re doing it. Last last orders, last visit to the Tower of London, last haircut, last episode of your favourite soap, last swim in the sea, last wank, last laugh (the longest?), last piss, last attempt to repair a faulty electrical appliance, last breath. I mean, how many last times have I had already?
“Cheer up, pet,” says the barmaid, with the special smile she reserves for certified losers, “things can’t be that bad. You’re still here, aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid you have the advantage, madam.”
“There’s only one reason a man wears a suit like that.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t catch your drift.”
“Well, you’ve had your day in court and they didn’t send you down – been a lucky boy, if you ask me. Same again, is it?”
That’s the trouble with my autobiography at the moment; it’s a treasure trove of self-deprecatory incident, but a little lacking on the Oscar nomination and ‘starlets I have shagged’ front. “Yes, that’s remarkably amusing, but if you must know, I’ve been waiting for a young lady.”
She obviously finds this a less plausible explanation than the criminal one: “Yeah, right.”
“And she’s obviously been unavoidably detained. She works in television, you see.”
“Yeah, right.”
“We were going on somewhere. Believe it or not, it’s my fortieth birthday.”
For some reason she seems to find this my most unlikely assertion of all. “Yeah…right.”
“I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for her absence but…” And I’m on the point of admitting what a pathetic fraud I am – and probably fessing up to nicking that racehorse as well – when something rather miraculous happens. Never before have I been so happy to hear that vulgar ring-tone. “In fact,” I say, producing my all-singing mobile with a theatrical flourish, “that’s probably her now. Hello, darling…lovely to hear your voice.” I beam triumphantly at the barmaid. “You’re breaking up, I’m afraid. Sorry, Sausage, I’m going to have to take you outside.”
No prizes for guessing that it’s pissing down.
“Timothy? Is that you?” says Valerie Owen. “I think I’d better call you back. It’s a terrible line. I could have sworn you just called me – ”
“No! Don’t do that, Valerie,” I say, turning up my jacket collar. “It should be all right now – how’s that?”
“Much better, dear. So, how’s Michael?”
“He’s gone down to Hampshire with Anna for the night. I probably should have mentioned it, but Mike didn’t want to worry you.”
“That sounds nice,” she says, breezily. “Anna’s lovely, I’m sure she’ll look after my Michael.” (I wasn’t expecting her to take it so well.) “But I expect you’re missing him, aren’t you, Tim?”
“Well…”
“It does get easier. I should know.”
“Does it?”
I push my way through a crowd of pissed-up college boys. This being Oxford, they’re in the middle of a heated debate about Britten’s War Requiem.
“Oi, watch it, baldy,” says a spotty wag in corduroy.
I scurry into the night, like a closet homosexual in 1950s London. “Piss off, crater face – no, not you, Valerie!”
“Are you all right, dear?”
“Not as such,” I say, realizing that I’m being honest for a change. “It’s my birthday, actually.”
“You should have said something, Timothy. I would have baked you a cake.”
And now I really am breaking up. Insults I can take, but sympathy I find almost impossible to cope with. “I’m forty years old, I look fi
fty, I can’t even get myself a bloody Flatuleeze commercial, and I’ve just been stood up by my dinner date – how’s that for many happy returns?”
“Fancy standing up a lovely chap like you,” says Valerie indignantly. “The silly girl must be out of her mind.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. Tell you what, Timothy. I’m coming to see Hamlet in a couple of weeks. I know it’s not the same, but after the show, I’m going to take you for a special birthday drink.”
I haven’t the heart to tell her that there’s not going to be any Hamlet, at least not the five-act tragedy that she’s expecting. “Thanks, I’ll hold you to that.”
“Of course, Shakespeare’s not really my cup of tea. I prefer a nice musical – Andrew Lloyd Webber or something like that.”
“Did I tell you my ex-wife was in Cats?”
“I didn’t realize you’d been married, dear.”
“It was a long time ago, Valerie, another country and all that. And besides, I never talk about her.”
♦
By the time I’ve outlined my full marital history (including some previously unpublished material about my perceived inadequacies in the bedroom and DIY departments) and Valerie has explained, once again, how ballroom dancing has brought her out of herself, and what a wonderful teacher Mr Hornbrook is, I find myself standing outside Gloucester College.
“Gosh, is that the time?” she yawns. “I think I’d better hit the hay, dear. It’s the paso doble tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to let Mr Hornbrook down.”
“Yes, good luck with that. And er…well, thanks.”
“Whatever for?”
“For listening. I know I go on a bit.”
“Don’t be silly, Timothy, I’ve enjoyed it. Next time I see you we can have a proper old natter.”
“I’d like that.”
“And Tim, you mustn’t get upset about those other things. It’s just a question of finding the right person. If you want your boiler fixed, call a plumber.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll pray for you.”
The Quadriplegic
Breakfast is going great. I don’t know what Anna’s mum is on, but the wicked witch of the west seems to have morphed into the good fairy overnight: “How about another one, Michael?”
“Yes, lovely, thank you, Mrs Jenkins.”
“Please, call me Camilla,” she says, spearing an organic Cumberland sausage on a giant fork. “Everyone else does.”
“You’re pretty chirpy this morning, Mummy,” says Anna.
“Do you know, darling, I rather think I am. I haven’t felt this good for donkeys’.”
“That makes two of us then,” says Anna, winking at me as she places a forkful of wild mushrooms in my mouth.
“Daddy and I couldn’t be happier for you, could we, Bernard?”
Mr Jenkins is feeding the dishwasher: “Absolutely, Pumpkin, good for you.”
“Where’s Philip?” I enquire innocently.
“He was up with the lark,” says Mrs Jenkins. “Maurice ran him up to the station in the van.”
“Why didn’t you tell me he was in his college first boat, Pumpkin? If I’d known he had to be back for training, I wouldn’t have kept the poor chap jawing half the night.”
“Such a polite young man,” says Mrs Jenkins. “You’ve done really well for yourself, Anna Panna. A girl couldn’t wish for a more suitable boyfriend.”
“Philip’s not my boyfriend, Mummy,” says Anna. “Michael is!”
“Well, shiver me timbers,” says Mr Jenkins, almost dislocating his thumbs.
Camilla Jenkins opens her mouth, but nothing emerges. The only sound is that of a half-cooked Cumberland sausage rebounding on the flagstones.
The Actor
I was so despondent this morning I barely stooped to examine the consistency of my post-Brazilian-blend stools. What was it D.H. Lawrence said about recklessness being man’s revenge on a woman? I shan’t be favouring Nikki Hard-body with a second bite at the cherry.
Perhaps I should have expected it. Then again, we are talking about the man who fondly imagined there to be a paucity of porky, middle-aged Equity members prepared to expose themselves for a colony of rodents. As my agent (Bunny Michelmore at Bunny Michelmore Management) said at the time, “Sorry, darling, some of them had had ten years’ vermin experience. In the end, it came down to that.”
You will probably gauge my mental state by the fact that I haven’t even dipped into Be Your Own Psychotherapist in One Weekend. I mean, we all know the things we could do to make us feel better: Go on a low-fat diet, take regular exercise, cut down on alcohol, meditate daily, stop watching so much telly, cultivate meaningful, mutually supportive friendships, stop being secretive, give up caffeine (do me a favour!), read a good book, develop a religious faith and always live in the present. The trouble is, eating pizza, watching Match of the Day, drinking Australian wine, regular masturbation, Trisha, losing touch with your school friends, bottling it all up, freshly ground coffee, reading the tabloids, agnosticism and brooding on the past, come so much more naturally. Which is why, as soon as I finish my fifth cup of Brazilian, I’m going to settle down in front of some daytime telly and fire up the Purrfect Pussy.
“Have you seen them yet?” she says, bursting through the door with her camera cocked. “I haven’t missed them, have I?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I can’t believe it. It’s absolutely amazing.” She might conceivably have popped into my fantasies at some point, but after last night, it’s absolutely amazing that Nikki Hardbody has got the gall to show up in my rooms.
“What is?” I say, deliberately not clocking her skintight jeans and skimpy crop top.
“Michael and Anna, they’re a couple. Can you believe that?”
I never thought I’d see a woman like Nikki skipping. “No.”
“Well, it’s true,” she says, polkaing over to the mantelpiece. “Philip just told me – isn’t it fab?”
“No.”
“What’s the matter with you guys? Philip looked like shit until I explained what this means.”
“What does it mean?”
“Are you kidding? Hamlet and Ophelia in lurve? I knew the whole Hamlet thing was going to be great, but like I said to Philip, with those two playing happy families, every serious journo in Britain is going to want a piece of it.”
“Who knows,” she smiles, taking a green plastic object from the mantelpiece and testing the tip with her tongue, “Michael might be needing the Fecundimatic after all.”
“Yes,” I say, pointedly, “dealing with women is enough to give any man a headache.”
Nikki’s obviously too thick skinned to see what I’m driving at. She waltzes over to the window and rips open the curtains. “How can you live like this? It’s like a funeral parlour in here.”
I’m going to have to spell it out to her. “If you must know, I’m still recovering from last night.”
“Out on the piss, were you?”
“I wasted my whole evening waiting for you.”
The penny finally drops. “Oh, that,” she shrugs, “sorry about that. I was running late. Something came up. Another time, perhaps – you don’t mind, do you?”
Before I can produce a suitably vitriolic retort, the door swings open and in glides Romeo, followed by his breathless prom queen lugging a couple of suitcases.
“Well, look at you two,” says Nikki Hardbody, circling her prey like a hungry piranha. “Don’t they look fantastic, Timothy?”
“That’s one word for it,” I say, stepping between the star-crossed lovers into a rather tasty three-shot.
“Come on then,” says Nikki, winking so hard that she must be coming down with Tourette’s syndrome, “how was last night?”
“Fine, thanks,” blushes Anna.
“Aren’t you going to tell your Auntie Nikki all about it?”
“All about what?” says Michael.
When you think about it, it’s in rather poor taste. Michael glares at Nikki, refusing to dignify her puerile innuendo with a response.
“Yes, it is, actually,” says Anna, stepping forward and putting her hand over the lens. “Michael and I are a couple – so what? Now if you don’t mind, we’d like a bit of privacy.”
“Oh, yah, absolutely,” says Nikki. “But sooner or later we’re going to have to be upfront about this. What would you say to a weekend in Paris?”
Michael advances towards her, like an angry Dalek. “We don’t want anything, OK. Just leave us alone, can’t you, or I’m backing out of the whole thing.”
“Well, you did sign the consent forms,” smiles Nikki, “but of course, if that’s what you want. Forget Paris, nothing’s going to top Hamlet, anyway.” She pauses and squints up at the ceiling. “Christ, what’s that awful noise?”
It starts slowly, like a vintage steam engine, gathers speed and shudders towards an uncontrollable climax. What is that hollow sound, which seems to shake the very fabric of this venerable establishment and turn all eyes in one direction? Ah yes, it’s the sound of my own hysterical laughter; the laughter of a man for whom life has, long since, ceased to make sense; the laughter of a man who’s done his homework and knows exactly how he’s going to put a bloody great spanner in the works.
∨ The Opposite Bastard ∧
14
The Play’s the Thing
The Opposite Bastard Page 15
