The Only Boy For Me

by Gil McNeil

  ‘What, the whole company? Or just the top boys? Because if everyone gets a BMW and a driver I’m applying for a job here tomorrow. I suppose secretly you’re yearning for a Reliant Robin.’

  ‘Are you going to be sarcastic all night?’

  ‘Probably. I’m nervous.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘Shall we start again?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come here and I’ll show you.’

  Mack grins, and visibly relaxes.

  ‘If you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do, I’d rather wait until we’re out of the car park, if you don’t mind, and off the security monitors. Otherwise poor old Bill will have a heart attack.’

  ‘Fair enough. Do you actually know how to drive this thing?’

  ‘Shut up and get in.’

  We race out of the car park at astonishing speed, and I sit back and enjoy being driven by someone else for a change. A hideous noise suddenly belts out of the CD player, very loud ‘Smack Your Bitch Up’-type music. Mack brakes and grabs the disc.

  ‘Sorry about that, I was listening to it this morning for a pitch we’re doing next week. It’s awful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not the kind of thing you can really sing along to, unless you hate women and have a serious drug habit.’

  ‘Quite. Describes our client perfectly. So, do you really want to go to dinner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bugger.’

  ‘This dress cost a fortune. It might as well go somewhere posh for dinner.’

  ‘Couldn’t we just drop the dress off at the Ivy, and go home?’

  ‘No. Leila made me promise to write down all the famous people I see.’

  ‘Leila?’

  ‘Leila Langton; she’s my best friend. Do you know her?’

  ‘Christ, I know her. She’s terrifying. Do you have lots of frightening friends?’

  ‘Loads. And she’s not frightening, she’s lovely.’

  ‘Not if she thinks you’re trying to nick one of her clients, she isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, that explains it. She said I wasn’t to worry if she turned up at some point during the evening and took you outside for a quick word.’

  He laughs, and then suddenly pulls over and stops the car. ‘Now what was it you were going to show me in the car park?’

  Never made it to dinner. Barely made it back to Mack’s house. End up ordering pizza at two in the morning. It’s bliss to be in London where you can order things at two in the morning. It’s bliss to be in Mack’s bed. Bliss, bliss. Dress is a resounding success, I lose track of my shoes entirely, and my new bra is awarded a certificate of merit for effort, but is soon discarded as surplus to requirements. I’d forgotten how nice it is to spend hours in bed with a desirable man – it makes a change from chocolate Hobnobs and the remote control although it’s infinitely more exhausting. In between passionate interludes which seem to go on for hours, we talk and talk.

  We finally surface at lunchtime on Saturday. I realise I’ll have to leave soon if I’m going to get home and change before picking up Charlie. Mack startles me by suggesting he drives me home and meets Charlie, and then we drug him so he goes to sleep early. I point out that I don’t think Charlie will appreciate me turning up with a stranger, and will probably refuse to get into the car, let alone take drugs, so we end up deciding that I’ll go home and Mack will drive down later tonight.

  Drive home in a daze. Kate takes one look at me and says, ‘Wow. He must be quite something.’

  ‘Yes, and he’s driving down tonight for an action replay. Do you think I should try to be a bit more cool?’

  She looks at me and we both start laughing.

  ‘Oh Christ, I forgot. Your earrings. Oh God, I’ve no idea where they are.’

  I ring Mack on my mobile and ask him to try to find them. He calls back five minutes later and says he’s found one under the bed and another on the stairs, and are they real emeralds, because if so he’s keeping them. I explain to Kate that her jewels are safe, and then Charlie bounds down the stairs and nearly knocks me over, and we have a long cuddle while he tells me all the marvellous things he’s been doing. I feel sure they aren’t as marvellous as what I’ve been up to, but naturally do not say this. His list includes drinking Coke in bed, and throwing wet flannels at Phoebe while she was asleep, and then running away and hiding in the garden. I’m about to remonstrate when Kate explains that Phoebe got her own back with the garden hose, which is why Charlie’s bag is full of wet clothes. I thank her and promise to meet her for coffee at the earliest child-free opportunity.

  Charlie is exhausted, and sits happily watching a video and occasionally telling me fabulous snippets from his overnight stay with James. He’s even willing to have an early bath and supper. I tell him I have a friend coming down later, but he will probably be asleep before he arrives.

  ‘Is it Leila?’

  ‘No, a new friend. He’s called Mack.’

  ‘Like Old Macdonald?’

  ‘Not really. Anyway, you’ll probably be asleep. But if you’re still awake I’ll bring him in to say hello.’

  ‘OK, Mummy. Mummy, you know Coke?’

  I assume he means the fizzy drink – I hope he does – and say, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I want it for my packed lunch. It’s brilliant.’

  ‘Charlie, you know the school rules. Water or juice.’

  ‘That’s just stupid. Can we have Coke tomorrow for lunch? It’s the weekend, you know.’

  ‘Yes, probably. We’ll see. Now let’s get you into bed.’ I hope he goes straight to sleep. Sometimes when he’s very tired he falls asleep really early, but sometimes perversely it means he stays up extra late jumping on his bed. He’s chatting to his collection of soft toys as I creep out of the room, telling them how fantastic Coke is.

  Mack turns up at nine. He’s brought supper, which is lucky because I have no food in the house and would have had to resort to cheese and crackers, and not much else. We sit by the fire eating, and Mack complains that the village is not on his map, and he had to take compass readings and consult a madman at the local garage to find his way here. I point out that the London A–Z does not cover the villages of Kent, and he throws salami at me. We indulge in a minor food fight, and then begin kissing. The door bursts open and Charlie marches in. He takes one look at Mack and says, ‘Oh, you’ve got cake.’ Indeed there is a cake, a posh chocolate one with lots of swirls of chocolate on it, still in its white box from a smart Soho patisserie. Mack introduces himself, and I refuse point blank to sanction cake-eating in the middle of the night, but agree to put it in the fridge for the morning.

  I march Charlie back up to bed, and he seems totally uninterested in who the strange man was on the living-room floor. But somehow I feel like I’ve been caught out in unsuitable behaviour. I’ve never brought anyone home before. Not that there have been a huge number of opportunities to bring anyone anywhere, but on the few occasions where it has been an option I’ve always gone for their place, or hotels. Somehow Mack is different, but I don’t know why, or whether this will turn out to be a weekend fling, in which case I don’t want Charlie involved. Have a mini meltdown on the stairs, and explain to Mack that I’m feeling rather overwhelmed. He says he quite understands, and he’ll go if I want him to. Which I don’t. I make coffee and decide the best plan is to stay right where we are, with the door barricaded shut, so if Charlie does come wandering in again at least we’ll get some warning. At about three in the morning the living-room floor finally proves too uncomfortable, and the sofa too narrow, so we stumble up to my room to find Charlie asleep in the middle of the bed, doing his starfish impression. Mack smiles, and says he’ll sleep on the sofa, and I should get in with Charlie and let him wake up with just me. Which I think is very sweet. I tell him so, and we end up back in the living room, clinging on to the sofa until we both fall off. Stagger off to bed at dawn, feeling totally shattered, but happy.

  I wake up with Charlie, who is frigh
teningly lively and bounds off into the living room and switches on the television before I can stop him, so poor Mack is woken by cartoons at full blast. Thank God he has kids of his own and can cope with early-morning TV. Charlie seems totally unfazed by Mack, and merely asks him if he agrees that Shreddies are disgusting and no one should be forced to eat them. Mack says it depends, which I think is an excellent answer. Charlie wants to know what it depends on, and Mack says, ‘Whether your mother is about to give you a bowl of Shreddies, and I’ll get thrown out of the house for saying they taste like cardboard.’ Charlie is delighted, and so am I.

  ‘Don’t worry. If she makes you go out in the garden you can stay in my house; it’s got a door and everything.’

  ‘That’s good to know, Charlie, thanks.’

  I haven’t the heart to tell him the ‘house’ is actually a filthy old shed, full of mud and sticks. Charlie disappears into cartoon land, and I offer Mack the chance to catch up on some sleep in my bed while I have a bath and make breakfast.

  We decide to go to a pub for lunch before Mack heads back to London. Charlie plays happily in the garden, which has a swing and a stray dog which has appeared out of nowhere but seems very friendly. Mack and I talk, and it turns out he’s feeling a bit shellshocked too but does not want to go home, and is thinking of ordering a new extra-large sofa to be delivered in time for next weekend. The logistics of this are going to be tricky: we want to fix up something for next weekend, or sooner if possible, but Mack has his kids for the weekend, and I don’t want to dump Charlie again. A motorway service station doesn’t seem a very auspicious place for a liaison. We end up deciding to talk later as there must be a solution, and then we go home and finish reading the papers, and Charlie does jigsaws. Mack finally leaves at teatime. Charlie is engrossed in his wildlife programme and merely waves, and Mack and I spend twenty minutes saying goodbye in the kitchen, both agreeing that it’s been an extraordinary weekend. He says he’ll call in a couple of days when he knows what his plans are.

  I feel a terrible pang as his car disappears down the lane, but also a huge sense of relief as the combination of both Mack and Charlie is somehow totally draining. Gentle questioning of Charlie during bathtime reveals that he thinks Mack is all right, but he prefers Leila because she brings toys and not just cake. Then we move on to why I am incapable of buying toothpaste which does not taste like sick. He finally goes off to sleep after two escape attempts, clutching a sword and wearing a plastic helmet.

  I ring Leila for a debriefing session. She says it all sounds great, and is expert at decoding phrases like ‘I’ll call you in a couple of days’. I’d forgotten just how complicated this all is. It’s a bit like cracking the Enigma code really. If he hasn’t called by Friday afternoon I think it means he’s a bastard, but Leila says not necessarily: he may have outstanding commitment issues. We move on to how I should react if he does call. Screaming ‘Thank God, I’ve been sitting by the phone for the last three days’ is hopeless, apparently, and will guarantee disaster. And you are not allowed to ring them, because this signals that you are a desperate bunny-boiler. I just have to be calm, and if possible leave the answerphone on, so I can play back any messages to Leila and work out an appropriate response.

  I feel catapulted back in time, and seem to have turned back into my teenage self waiting for Gary Johnson to ring and ask me to the school disco. Which he didn’t, so I wish I hadn’t thought about it, really. I decide that, despite brilliant advice from Leila, I will simply answer the phone when it rings, and if he hasn’t rung by Wednesday I’ll call him and ask him what the fuck his problem is. Leila says this is hopeless, but may turn out to be right because she is halfway through a new book which says that playing games is wrong, and you should just go with your instincts. As my instinct is to hide under the duvet for the next six months, this may not be entirely helpful either. I tell Leila that really I’m not even sure I want him to call, because life is complicated enough already. She doesn’t fall for this, and says very sweetly that if I don’t stop being so pathetic she will drive down right now especially to slap me.

  Charlie wakes up in the middle of the night and launches himself into my bed saying he has had a horrible dream about a fox eating Buzz and Woody. We end up having to troop outside with a torch to reassure him they are still alive. They are very pleased to see us in the middle of the night, and put on a little cabaret performance, running up and down the hutch and hurling straw about. I put Charlie back into bed, but have to stroke his back for twenty minutes to get him calm enough to fall asleep. I wake up a few hours later feeling like I have had no sleep at all. Charlie is very grumpy, and is on the point of tears and tantrums when I come up with an inspired plan, suggesting we get dressed and then put Buzz and Woody in their run and eat our breakfast watching them. Charlie is desperate to let them out so they can run round the garden and flatten all the plants. But I persuade him that the ground is too wet from the overnight rain, and they’ll get sore feet from all the mud because they don’t have wellies. Charlie offers to lend them his.

  Mack rings on Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday. Leila says he has obviously not been reading the right books, because he is showing classic signs of being a stalker. It looks like next weekend is going to be too tricky, but we arrange to meet up the weekend after that. Lizzie agrees to come to stay – Matt is away at a conference – and she gets very excited and starts planning a thrilling itinerary of things to do with Charlie. Her list includes swimming, making a cake and going for long walks. Charlie’s list includes toy shopping and renting unsuitable videos from Blockbuster’s. I have a day in town in the office, but manage to resist the temptation to call Mack to see if he wants to meet for lunch. Apart from anything else, there’s too much work to do on various new jobs. Barney is very cheerful because his cut of the Cornish film is being hailed as a minor classic by everyone who sees it.

  Lizzie arrives at teatime on Saturday and is greeted by a small mountain of jigsaws which Charlie has got out specially. A heated debate follows as to when exactly they can drive to Blockbuster’s. I leave before pieces of jigsaw start flying about, and arrive early at Mack’s. He opens the door dripping wet and draped in a towel. He greets me with a kiss and invites me to join him in the shower. I can’t face stripping off in broad daylight so make him turn the bathroom lights off, and then fall over. Eventually manage to get into the shower, which is enormous, all marble and frosted glass with water jets everywhere, and a whole panel of buttons. I press one inadvertently during a passionate clinch, and the water jets instantly turn into powerful torrents which nearly knock us both over. It’s a bit like being in The Poseidon Adventure. Mack resets the controls with one hand and manoeuvres me into the corner furthest away from the buttons with the other. Emerge half an hour later feeling very happy, and also very, very clean.

  ‘Christ. That was fantastic. I knew spending a fortune on that bloody shower would come in handy one day. I’m starving. What do you fancy? Chinese or Italian?’

  ‘Chinese, I think.’

  ‘Great. I’ll just make a call and we can eat here.’

  The takeaway turns out to be rather different from the usual five tinfoil containers delivered by moped. A waiter turns up with countless little padded bags, and there’s no special fried rice in sight. He decants the food into bowls, and produces chopsticks, napkins and a small vase of orchids. The table looks beautiful, and he’s even found some candles and lit them. Finally he asks if we want him to serve the food. Mack says he thinks we can manage, and he departs clutching what looks like a £20 note.

  ‘Don’t tell me this lot only cost £20?’

  ‘Darling, that was his tip. I’ve got an account. Trust me, you don’t want to know what this cost. I don’t even want to know.’

  Mack rejects chopsticks in favour of a fork, saying he thinks chopsticks are a cunning ploy to serve smaller portions and humiliate customers simultaneously. I could get to seriously like this man. We talk about music, and disc
over a mutual love of Motown, Mahler, Sinatra, Elvis Costello and Italian opera, but only if the sopranos don’t get too shouty. We end up dancing to Frank Sinatra, which quickly descends into a passionate clinch on the sofa when it turns out that neither of us can actually dance to ‘New York, New York’.

  Hours later we collapse into bed and I sleep for a few hours, and then lie watching Mack sleep. I could get very fond of him indeed, and hope to God this doesn’t all end in tears and sick.

  I’m admiring the curve of his shoulder when he opens one eye and says, ‘For God’s sake, stop staring at me like that and do something useful, Moneypenny. If you make me a cup of coffee, I’ll be yours for ever.’

  ‘Shaken but not stirred, right?’

  Mack laughs and I go downstairs to make coffee wearing his dressing gown, which is much nicer than mine. I wonder if I can smuggle it out with me when I leave. I ring Lizzie who sounds exhausted. Apparently Charlie persuaded her to rent Jaws and then got terrified, and she had to spend half the night assuring him that great white sharks cannot swim up stairs.

  We have breakfast in bed, and resurface at lunchtime. I grab a quick shower, after insisting Mack goes downstairs to make coffee and does not join me in the shower or I’ll be there for hours. As I’m leaving he says, ‘I’ll ring you tonight, shall I, and you can tell me how much you’re enjoying wearing my dressing gown.’

  ‘Blast. I thought you wouldn’t notice.’

  We end up spending so long kissing goodbye a small crowd gathers on the pavement.

  I get home at teatime, and Lizzie and I have a quick debrief in the kitchen.

  ‘He sounds lovely.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Lucky you then, right?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. I mean yes, definitely. It’s all a bit overwhelming, really. And I’m totally knackered.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s nice knackered. It’s not like doing-the-ironing knackered.’