Being Alexander

by Nancy Sparling

  They start their spiel—about electricity or gas, burglar alarms or double-glazed windows—and tell you that you have to decide then and there, while you’re getting cold standing in your shirtsleeves holding open the front door. We’ve got a fantastic, unbeatable offer on an alarm system, they’ll tell you, it’s only thirty-two pence a day compared to the forty-one pence you’d be paying if you went with the competitor down the road. But you can’t think about it, you can’t look into it on your own, they’re forbidden to return to the same house twice. They have a sheet of paper you can sign saying you want to sign up, but that’s it. No price lists, no descriptive brochures, no real proof that they’re even valid companies.

  And if you ask for documentation, well, you might as well ask to fly to the moon for free.

  There’s no time to consider. No time for comparison-shopping. No time to work out the figures for yourself. Decisions must be instantaneous or you’ll miss out on their unbelievable offer.

  My mother—kind and thoughtful and meticulously polite to all—has fallen for a number of these schemes. And schemes they’ve turned out to be.

  I’m not saying that they’re all criminal, I’m sure most of the offers are totally upright and valid, but if they are real companies and if it’s such a great deal why can’t I have it in writing?

  I appreciate the fact that fewer people respond to a direct postal drop (I actually read the flyers before I throw them away, but then, I am in the business), but I want to feel safe, peaceful, and secure in the comfort of my own home; I don’t want hassle, I don’t want angst. I don’t want salespeople knocking on my door, disrupting my nap, disturbing me when I’m in the middle of painting the spare room.

  And how do decent companies expect you to trust them when they employ the same tactics as shady ones?

  Just give me something in writing. That’s what I want.

  Oh, and stay away from my bloody door.

  strong mind and strong muscles

  (time to claim back my life)

  I could have gone to bed early—hell, my body deserves to go to bed early after what it’s been through in the past few days—but I’m wired, I’m floating on a sea of elation and I know I won’t be able to sleep, so I go to the gym. Before Sarah I used to work out on a regular basis, three or four times a week. But once she’d sunk her claws into me all that changed. Oh, sure, it was slow and gradual: she didn’t sit me down and forbid me to go, but she always wanted us to “do” things together, even if it was just sitting at home watching TV. Gradually my days for the gym dropped to two or three a week, then two, then finally I was lucky if I could manage one. It’s funny, really, because I still think of myself as quite fit and I’ve kept my gym membership going, but it’s been three weeks since I’ve passed through these doors. Three weeks.

  I’ve never really thought about it before, about how I let Sarah control my life, but she did. I was such a weakling. My will was impotent. I was useless, weak, a fool. At the time I thought I was making decisions, but I wasn’t, not really. Oh, sure, Sarah let me choose my own food from the Chinese take-away, but it was always her decision whether we ate Indian or Chinese or had fish and chips. I thought we were having discussions, that we were both compromising, that I was being kind and a gentlemen in letting her have her way (she used to get so upset and claim her stomach just couldn’t face a curry the first few times I expressed an interest in anything other than pizza or sweet and sour chicken or whatever it was she particularly fancied that night), but I was merely a wimp. If we’d stayed together I would have become one of those hen-pecked men who isn’t trusted to collect the correct newspaper from the corner newsagents.

  All that’s about to change. It’s time to claim back the real me. Or the new and improved me.

  I decide to have a real gym session, none of this hurried namby-pamby business of having to get back to Sarah. I could really start hating her, but I’m honest enough to accept my share of the blame. I let her control my life. I let her stomp all over my heart and my self-esteem and look at where that got me. No one (bar one’s own mother and perhaps one’s father but definitely not including siblings or spouses or probably even one’s children) will ever love and look after a person as much as that person needs or wants. Everyone is looking out for number one and it’s up to me, as my own man, to ensure that I am happy and satisfied. Sarah wanted to be in charge, that made her happy. She sure as hell wasn’t concerned with my happiness.

  They’re playing the theme tune from Rocky in the changing room. I cock my head and listen for a moment, wondering if this is one of the songs Sarah played while she was screwing Jed. (I know she likes to make love to music and match her thrusts to the tempo when it’s not a slow song.)

  And what about poor Lionel Richie? Forever more I’ll associate his music with the smell of vomit and the sight of Jed’s face as he came into my Sarah. And no one, certainly not a singer who entertains millions, deserves such an association. That’s another black mark against Jed and Sarah, making me involve a man who’s innocent of wrongdoing and whose voice just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. An acrid taste forms in my mouth as I hear Lionel Richie’s voice in my head and I take a deep breath and force my thoughts away. I am Alexander. That is my mantra, and I repeat it internally. I am Alexander. I am Alexander. I am Alexander. And suddenly I feel better.

  A surge of excitement shoots up my spine as I enter the exercise room. Previously I’d always been plain old Alex intent upon my weights and repetitions, clocking heart rate and muscle mass and all that, but now, whoa, hold on, world, I am Alexander. A man in charge of his own life.

  I’m not a fool, I know that outwardly I still look the same (except for the stitches on my forehead and temple), but it must be because I’m more aware, or the confident way in which I carry myself, for I’d swear that people notice me when I enter the room. I’m not conceited. I know I’m not a gorgeous hunk and I know that not every man, woman, and child in the world will instantly love and fancy me, but I know I’ve got something going. I’m special and sexy and I’m oh-so-ready for action. I’m strong and confident and I know where I’m headed.

  I’ve always thought all that talk about gyms being pick-up places for singles was just so much garbage, but that was because Alex wasn’t looking, because Alex wasn’t invited to participate in such an activity. But as Alexander it’s obvious I’ve entered a whole new world.

  I could get used to this.

  No, I am used to this already. This is how it should be.

  After I jog for two miles on the treadmill I head for the rowing machines. A buxom blonde sits at the one next to mine as I begin to row. (Sarah would insist on telling me the woman’s a fake blonde, but if I listened to Sarah I’d have to believe there wasn’t a single natural blonde in all of London, that they were confined by quarantine laws to Scandinavian countries.) The blonde—fake, natural, who cares, she looks good—is wearing makeup and her nails, painted bloodred, are so long that last week I would have called them talons (and then not kindly). The overall look is rather cheap and tacky, sort of like a housewife striving to look more like a prostitute to win attention from her straying husband, but I’m instantly turned on.

  Yesterday afternoon, before my moment of catharsis, before I became Alexander, it would have been a real turn-off: I would have thought she was trying way too hard for the gym, but today I think she’s fantastic. Women should look after themselves, and I bet she keeps her bikini line and pedicure in tip-top condition all winter long.

  “Hi,” she says, and smiles at me as I’m wondering if I’ll ever get a chance to see for myself if she’s a natural blonde.

  “Hi,” I say, turning to look her in the eye. And in that split second I see the lust flash between us. She wants me. Sure, she might be a psycho or desperate or even diseased, but I don’t care, I can handle myself and, besides, it’s probable she’s just like me, feeling horny with a need for some pleasant relief of that ache.

 
; I think all this press about women never thinking about sex is a con. I bet they think about it as much as, or more than, we do. They’ve simply got more control than men. You can’t tell me that women never go out shopping or to a bar or even to a gym and don’t wish they could take a particular man home with them and screw his brains out. Maybe a woman is less likely to actually act on her impulses than a man (I blame this on society), but I’m as certain as I’m certain about anything else that women feel the same as we do. We’re all animals, not bodiless minds in perfect control. Our bodies scream out for sex. It’s an instinct thing.

  “I’m Kate,” says the blonde. She starts to row and I slow so that we’re pulling in sync.

  “Hi, Kate. I’m Alexander.”

  Even as this is happening I know it’s all pretty inane as conversations go, but I know—somehow—that in half an hour or an hour Kate and I are going to be shagging. I smile at her, then see her eyes widen and her pupils dilate slightly. Oh, yes, I’m in. Alexander is going to get lucky. Women who look like her don’t play hard to get. And what’s the point in waiting, in denying yourself pleasure when the sex is inevitable?

  “What happened to your head? Were you in an accident?” she asks.

  Shut up and let’s fuck. I think this, but I don’t say it, I’m not stupid, I know we have to pretend, for formality’s sake, to be interested in one another as people, when in fact it’s just the body we want. I’m not interested in her for her conversational skills, but I can pretend. I’m a male, I’m a good actor when it comes to such things. As Alex I was actually interested in women; I enjoyed talking to them, and look where that got me. Better not to have a heart and to expect nothing but the moment and then you won’t get hurt.

  “No, I was mugged a couple of nights ago,” I say. As it comes out it doesn’t sound pathetic, it makes me sound dashing and exciting, like I live life to the full. A bar fight would sound too pedestrian and would make me seem a thug and the reality, that it wasn’t a bar fight, that it wasn’t a brawl, that it was a one-sided attack and that I was just an unfortunate bystander, would make me sound pitiful.

  “Oh.” She looks impressed so I decide to tell her the truth. Alexander’s truth.

  “I was walking home alone after a night out and these two hooligans jumped out and demanded my money.” True, true, all true, if not the whole truth.

  “Did you give it to them?” she asks.

  “No way. ‘Not even over my dead body,’ I told them.” This is the truth, or would have been the truth if I’d been Alexander on the night I was mugged.

  “Really? You stood up to them? What happened then? Did they hit you?”

  I shrug modestly. I’ve seen what I’d wanted to happen in my mind enough times so I don’t have trouble describing what would have happened had I been Alexander that night and not cowardly Alex. “They had a knife,” I say.

  “A knife?”

  “Uh-huh. They both attacked me, but I managed to punch one on the nose.” I had punched someone on the nose, just not the mugger. I know what it’s like to feel crunching bone and cartilage with my knuckles, to see the blood erupt like a geyser. “The bloke I hit went down, but the other one managed to get me on the side of the head.” I indicate my stitches. “I thought I was a goner, but I shook him loose and then I kicked the knife out of his hand. As soon as that knife skittered away on the pavement it’s like their courage suddenly disappeared, just like that, and they ran off.”

  “Wow. I’m impressed.” Her voice is huskier.

  Does the talk of violence excite her? Does she see me as a powerful man? Does she think I’m strong and assertive and flowing with enough testosterone to satisfy her?

  I spot a dimple on one of her cheeks and I grin. Oh, yes, I’m going to enjoy this. For two years I’ve slept with no one but Sarah, for two years I was faithful to that trollop while she was screwing around, and now it’s my turn for some fun.

  I know I promised myself a long workout, but let’s just say I’m not disappointed when Kate invites me back to her place for a drink. Sex is, after all, very good exercise if you’re doing it right.

  makeover day,

  or the physical exorcism of alex

  Monday morning I wake up feeling refreshed as if my four hours of sleep had been twelve. All this adrenaline, all this excitement, all this hope for the future, all this new attitude is keeping me going. I know it won’t last, that at some point I’ll have to go back to my seven or eight hours of sleep a night, but while I don’t seem to need it I’m not going to complain. It leaves me so many more hours a day to implement my plans.

  I smile as I slide from bed. My bed. In my room. After four hours of hot, steamy sex with Kate (I said it would be a good workout), I kissed her good-bye, left my mobile number, and walked home. I don’t think she was disappointed that I didn’t stay. She didn’t seem disappointed.

  But did she really want me to stay? Did she want to sleep in my arms? I snort to myself. Why the hell should I care? I’m not Alex. Alex would care, Alex would have stayed the night, Alex would have cuddled with her in the morning, but I am not that man. I will never be that man again. (And Kate didn’t seem upset when I said good-bye. She didn’t act let down. It’s simply likely that she doesn’t sleep very well with a stranger in her bed.)

  I may see Kate again; I’d like to see her again, but it’ll be for the sex. The last thing I want or need at the moment is a woman who thinks she has the right to tell me what to do. And even though she lives in a shared flat with one of her girlfriends, there wasn’t a single book in sight. Not one. Just some glossy women’s magazines. I can’t take anyone seriously who doesn’t own at least two or three books. Airport thrillers, romance novels, anything will do, I’m not fussy. But no books at all? That’s like trying to talk to someone whose musical taste never progressed beyond Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Sure I liked it when I was a child, it was an amazing album for its time, but life goes on. Tastes change. There’s always something new to try.

  I slip into the bathroom just as I hear Noreen’s alarm clock go off in the next room. “Excellent,” I say, in a Bill and Ted voice, mimicking Keanu Reeves. I feel like I’m leading a blessed life, that since my rebirth as Alexander luck and fortune have been on my side and will continue to be so for the rest of my days. If I were still Alex, I would have left my room just as Noreen slammed the door of the bathroom and I would have been forced to wait half an hour for her to finish washing all that hair as I hopped up and down, growing more and more desperate for the toilet.

  When I get my own house I want at least three toilets. Five people for one toilet is just stupid. It’s ludicrous. Who designed this flat conversion anyway? Five bedrooms and only one toilet that’s locked away in the bathroom, unavailable whenever anyone has a shower or a bath, is verging on the inhumane. It’s a fact of life that people need toilets, no use glossing over it or pretending that that side of life doesn’t exist. And it’s not like we can go outside and duck behind a tree: we’d be arrested if we tried that in London.

  But at least today it’s Noreen who has to wait. I’m glad I’m no longer nice or I’d have to offer her the use of the toilet and then she’d probably say yes and ask if I’d mind if she had a shower as she was in there. What a drag being considerate is. No wonder most people are selfish—it’s more comfortable. I’m certainly finding it so. And my bladder thinks so, too.

  After I shower and dress I grab my checkbook, stop by the bank and withdraw a thousand quid. It’s makeover time. Let’s see if Sarah was right and a new haircut and clothes can make a difference. I don’t feel that I need them, but I want them. I’m the new me and I deserve to look my best. I want to look suave and sophisticated. I want all traces of the loser eradicated. Alex has to be completely annihilated, both physically and mentally. It’s like an exorcism. I can feel him inside my head at times clamoring to get out, but I won’t let him. He wants to be soft, he wants to moderate my actions, he wants me to offer Noreen the bathroom first to
morrow. But I won’t let him contaminate me. Alexander is stronger than Alex is. Alexander is a winner. And I am Alexander.

  Now I just need the clothes and haircut that show it to the world at a glance. For the first rule of success is to look successful.

  It’s snip, snip, snip at the hairdressers, one of those expensive salons that charges you two hundred pounds for a simple wash and style, but I have to say it’s worth it. I look different. I normally have a short back and sides, and this new style is as easy to maintain, but I look good. Better. I could be a playboy, the son of a media tycoon, a man who lives off the interest of his trust fund. What I do not look like is a loser who was just sacked from his last job. I don’t look like Alex any longer. Alexander is here to stay.

  (It’s not only the haircut you’re paying for, you’re paying for the experience, for the secret little thrill of having an attractive brunette running her fingers through your hair and giving your shoulders a little massage before the shampoo, spending your time hoping she’ll brush her breasts against your back just one more time. I say it’s value for money.)

  I give Bond Street a miss until my replacement credit cards arrive, but I do head to Savile Row and order two bespoke suits, buy a ready-made one from Austin Reed, plus new shoes, shirts, ties, a briefcase, and some casual clothes. (I have to pop back to the bank three times for more cash.) Nothing ill-fitting or cheap for me. It’s not a complete new wardrobe, but it’ll do. The rest can come later.

  I catch a cab back to the flat. Everyone’s out working but me, thank God, and I can make the necessary phone calls in peace and quiet.