by Mike Gayle
7.33 p.m.
Our first night in the flat. Just me, Jim and Disco. A little urban family unit. We watch TV, order home-delivery Chinese and drink a six-pack of Becks from the off-licence two doors down. Best of all, when the Chinese arrives we sit down at our brand new dining-table to eat it.
‘I’m so happy right now,’ I say, chopsticks in hand. ‘This is perfect. When we’ve finished eating at our jointly owned table, how do you fancy retiring to our jointly owned bed?’
Jim grins from ear to ear. ‘That sounds like a splendid idea, my dear.’
Friday, 14 February 1997
7.31 a.m.
I’m in the communal hallway checking the mail. Amongst the usual junk post is an envelope that has been forwarded from my parents’ address. I have a pretty good idea what it is and open it with a mixture of curiosity and guilt. Inside is a cream card with a small gold heart in the centre. Inside, it reads: ‘Happy Valentine’s Day, still missing you, D.’ I know I ought to throw it away but I don’t. I take the card and the envelope and after Jim goes to work hide it in an old shoebox.
Thursday, 13 March 1997
6.43 a.m.
It’s been a month since Alison and I moved in together and things have been going great. We seem to be spending most of our time laughing and eating nice food. Our friends think we’ve disappeared off the face of the earth because we don’t go out any more. It’s not like we can’t. It’s more like we don’t want to. I feel we’re a bit like Tom and Barbara from The Good Life – completely self-sufficient from the outside world. I like the way things are between us: they seem so much more relaxed than before. Right now, however, I’m lying in bed next to Alison listening to the Today programme and thinking about getting up when suddenly, as if from nowhere, I smell something I’ve never smelt before . . . at least, I’d never smelt it from this particular source.
‘Was that you?’ I ask Alison, nudging her in the ribs.
‘Was what me?’ she replies, clearly faking sleep.
‘You’re such a bad liar,’ I say, sniffing the air surreptitiously, ‘I know it’s not me and Disco isn’t in the room, so who else is it going to be?’ I put my arm around her and adopt an incredibly patronising manner. ‘It is okay, you know. You can fart. It is allowed.’
‘I’ve been holding it in all night,’ says Alison, letting out a giggle that’s nine parts laughter to one part shame. ‘I’m really sorry, Jim. I’m an awful girlfriend, aren’t I?’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve done this . . .’ she pulls a disgusted face ‘. . . in front of you.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ I say. ‘You’re right. We’ve been together all this time and this really is the first time I’ve heard you fart. How come I’ve never heard you before? Everyone’s got to fart sometimes. Even you. Where have you been doing it?’
Alison hangs her head in shame. ‘When you’re around, in the bathroom mainly, out in the hallway sometimes and occasionally by the front door – anywhere that’s a public space so I can blame it on someone else.’
‘You’re insane. Do you know that?’
Alison nods, and then she kisses me.
Friday, 28 March 1997
7.09 p.m.
It’s early evening, and Alison and I are watching TV with Disco stretched out between us.
‘She looks like you, you know,’ says Alison.
‘Who does?’
‘Disco.’
‘You’re saying I look like a cat?’
‘Not exactly. I just think that if she looks like either of us it’s you. You are her dad, after all.’
I look at Disco, who’s lying on her back yawning widely. ‘I think you’re right,’ I observe. ‘She does look like me.’
Friday, 4 April 1997
3.45 a.m.
‘Are you awake?’
In the darkness of our bedroom I turn to look in Alison’s direction and then at the alarm clock on the floor next to me.
‘No.’ I sigh.
Alison laughs. ‘I can’t sleep.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve got something on my mind.’
‘You’re not going to let me go back to sleep without us having a talk, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘It’s three months since we officially moved in together,’ says Alison proudly. ‘I just want to make sure that things are going okay.’
‘Can I just ask, you know what time it is, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And yet you still want to know the answer to this question?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even though we’ve both got work in the morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fine. I’ve got no complaints. You’re actually . . . okay to live with.’
Alison laughs. ‘Okay? You know I’m better than “okay”.’
‘Okay, you’re not too bad, then.’
‘I know you think I’m being a bit mad and that’s because I am being a bit mad. But I just want to make sure everything’s okay between us.’ She pauses, then adds, ‘Relationships are about communicating so here I am communicating.’
‘Thanks for that information. Shall we go back to sleep now?’
‘Yeah,’ says Alison sleepily, and kisses my chin.
She drifts off to sleep immediately, but I’m awake now so I lie next to her and wonder what disease I might have that can make the snores, wheezes and snuffles of the woman lying next to me sound so magical.
Sunday, 25 May 1997
3 p.m.
I’m on the phone in the middle of a conversation with Jane. Jim’s watching TV in the living room and Disco is on the bed next to me, rolling on her back and occasionally scraping at the bedcovers.
‘So, how’s living together going?’ she asks.
‘I can’t fault it,’ I proclaim happily. ‘I feel like he really wants to be with me.’
‘That’s brilliant. I’m so pleased for you.’
‘I think in all the time we’ve been together we’ve gone through all the stages: like the madly-in-love phase and the weird not-quite-a-real-relationship phase when we were living in different cities, and there was all that pressure. But now we’re actually living together I . . . Well, the thing is . . .’
‘What?’
‘I feel like it’s too perfect.’
‘Like a honeymoon period?’
‘Exactly. It feels like we’re on our best behaviour all the time. I’m sure we can’t keep it up. Sooner or later the honeymoon has got to end.’
Saturday, 5 July 1997
6.33 p.m.
We’ve got some friends coming over for our first dinner party in an hour or so, but right now I’m watching last weekend’s Blind Date on video. I want contestant number three to win but I just know that the student with the shiny shirt is going to choose number two because she’s managed to work into one of her answers that she’s a blonde. Suddenly I notice something. I take a surreptitious sniff of the air just to confirm whether or not my worst nightmare is about to come true.
Sniff.
Sniff.
Sniff.
Sniff.
It has.
There’s a distinct smell of burning Chicken Provençal. I leap out of the armchair and pass Disco heading rapidly away from the kitchen. I’m faced with a roomful of smoke. I grab the ‘Welcome to Norwich’ oven gloves Alison’s mum bought us for Christmas and open the oven door. I’m greeted by a smoking mass of charred black slurry in a Pyrex dish.
I’ve killed the Chicken Provençal.
I turn around to see a half-dressed Alison standing in the doorway. I look at the Chicken Provencal again.
The chicken is dead and now I am too.
‘I’m really sorry—’ I begin, but Alison doesn’t wait around for an explanation. She turns and leaves the room.
6.36 p.m.
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed thinking about what’s just happened. In a way I feel semi-responsible for th
e catastrophe that has befallen the meal. I’d left the fate of the Chicken Provençal in Jim’s hands. I knew I’d live to regret it. I knew it. But at the same time I didn’t want to get our new set-up off to a bad start by treating him like an idiot incapable of following simple instructions. And, anyway, I’d needed to have a shower, do my hair and put on some makeup.
‘Look, I’m really sorry,’ says Jim, standing in the doorway. ‘It just completely slipped my mind.’
‘All you had to do was turn off the bastard cooker when it went ping,’ I say angrily. ‘A child of four could’ve done that. Or a trained monkey.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Jim.
I can’t bring myself to speak to him.
‘I’m really sorry. Listen, I’ll sort it out, babe. You carry on getting ready and I’ll sort all the mess in the kitchen. When everyone arrives I’ll tell them it was my fault.’
‘Fine,’ I snap, but I give up all hope of an evening of sophisticated banter the moment I hear Jim pick up the phone, dial and say, ‘I’d like to order the Peking Garden Banquet Meal for six.’
Sunday, 6 July 1997
1.15 a.m.
Jim and I are in bed. We’re lying in neither of our usual positions that involve touching or spooning but, rather, we’re silently fuming with each other. Everything turned out all right in the end. The food was good, our friends appeared to enjoy themselves and Jim was at his most charming and entertaining. Most people would’ve considered it a success. But not me. As I lie there in bed next to Jim I wish with my whole heart that I hadn’t referred to the Smeg oven in the kitchen as ‘the bastard cooker’. I feel as if that one word has changed everything between us. Since we moved in together I’ve been desperately trying to keep that side of me hidden – to imagine that somehow it had disappeared.
We are supposed to be madly in love.
We are supposed to be new and improved, like soap powder with added cleaning power.
We aren’t supposed to be yelling expletives at each other.
I wish I could go back in time and uninvite our friends, then Jim could incinerate as many meals as he likes. I could be laid-back and easy. I could laugh off even the worst disaster. But now I’ve broken the truce and I think it’s inevitable that we’ll reach this point again.
‘Jim?’ I whisper to the body lying next to me. ‘Are you talking to me?’
‘Hmm?’ he mutters noncommittally.
‘So you’re not talking to me. Well, listen . . . I’m sorry.’
‘That’s okay,’ he replies softly. ‘I’m sorry too.’
‘Friends?’ I say, rubbing his calf with my foot.
‘Yeah,’ he replies. ‘We’re still friends.’
Friday, 22 August 1997
8.01 a.m.
Jim and I are going to Norwich for the weekend to spend my twenty-seventh birthday with my parents. They called him and told him they wanted to throw me a surprise party featuring a whole host of distant relatives whom I haven’t seen in years. When he told me the bad news I was so utterly annoyed with him for having agreed to get me there that I could barely speak. I’m calmer now, but only marginally so – I can’t believe Jim made me book half a day’s holiday so we could get there early.
‘Right then,’ I say to Jim, as I zip up my overnight bag. ‘We’d better get a move on if we’re going to get to my parents’ before lunch-time.’
‘We can’t go yet,’ says Jim, rummaging through the drawer in my bedside table. ‘I can’t find your passport.’
‘That’s because it’s in the drawer in the kitch—’ I stop abruptly and give him my full attention. ‘Why are you looking for my passport?’
‘Because you won’t be able to leave the country without it.’
‘But we’re going to my parents’.’
Jim shakes his head.
‘But you—’
‘I lied.’
‘So we’re going where exactly?’
‘New York.’
‘New York?’
‘Three days in New York, leaving this afternoon, coming back Monday night.’
‘But what about work?’
‘I called your boss and sorted it out.’
‘I thought there was something funny going on. I kept trying to talk to her about a meeting on Monday and she just kept smiling at me enigmatically and changing the subject.’
‘All my doing.’ Jim opens an envelope on the bed and hands me the tickets.
‘We can’t afford this,’ I tell him.
‘No, we can’t,’ he admits, ‘but we need a break and this is it.’
‘But I didn’t pack with the aim of going to New York. I packed for a boring weekend with Mum and Dad.’
‘I know,’ says Jim. ‘Not very practical, am I? Well, the cab taking us to Heathrow will be here in an hour and a half so you’d better repack. Talking of which . . . I don’t suppose you’ve seen my cut-off jeans, have you? I can’t seem to find them anywhere and it might be hot out there.’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘I haven’t seen them in ages. Maybe you lost them in the move? Anyway, they were horrible-looking things.’
‘Maybe,’ muses Jim. ‘But I kind of liked them.’
Saturday, 23 August 1997
10.23 a.m.
The floor around our bed is littered with wrapping-paper from the surprise birthday presents I’ve given Alison: some pearl earrings, a gilt-edged notebook and a couple of books she’d wanted (The God of Small Things and Cold Mountain). We’re now lying in bed with the windows open, listening to the sound of New York.
‘Even the traffic sounds different from London,’ says Alison. She pauses and looks at me. ‘That was a really stupid thing to say, wasn’t it?’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘It was a pretty good observation.’
Alison laughs. ‘That’s one of the great things about being with you. I can say stupid stuff and it doesn’t feel stupid.’
3.03 p.m.
Jim and I are eating a late lunch in the Dean and DeLuca deli near the Rockefeller Center. We’re sitting next to the window, watching people go by. Every now and again our eyes meet across the table and we smile like we’re sharing a secret that no one else knows.
10.34 p.m.
We’re shattered. An evening of hopping around Manhattan’s finest bars and clubs has been shelved for a night in and an evening of US TV. Now, though, we’re in our hotel room and I’m ticking off the items we want from the room-service breakfast menu.
‘Orange or grapefruit juice?’
‘Grapefruit.’
‘Tea or coffee?’
‘I’ll have a coffee, thanks.’
‘Cereal? They’ve got muesli, cornflakes, bran flakes and porridge.’
‘Not for me.’
‘Fruit?’
‘I’m going to stick to stuff that needs a knife and fork.’
‘Okay, how many eggs?’
‘Two.’
‘How do you want them?’
‘It’s got to be over easy,’ says Jim.
I can’t help but laugh. ‘You’ve always wanted to order your eggs over easy. Okay, next up. Sausage links?’
‘Is that like normal sausage?’ I shrug. ‘Put me down for some of it anyway.’
‘Canadian bacon?’
‘Some of that too. In fact, tick everything else that’s there. I love breakfast.’
‘Okay,’ I say, ticking the boxes. ‘One last question from the menu: do you love me? The options are, one, a bit; two, a lot; three, to the moon and back again.’
Jim looks at me and smiles. ‘It’s got to be three.’
Sunday, 24 August 1997
9.47 a.m.
We’re at the top of the Empire State Building. Alison is looking out through the put-the-money-in-the-slot binoculars across Manhattan. I’m reading our guidebook to New York.
‘According to the guidebook, the Empire State Building is a hundred and three floors high,’ I tell Alison.
‘Really?’ she says vaguely.
&nbs
p; ‘It’s 1472 feet tall from the top of the TV mast to the ground.’
‘Fascinating.’
‘The volume of the building is thirty-seven million cubic feet.’
‘Amazing.’
‘And it took seven million man-hours to construct.’
‘Mind-boggling.’
‘You’re being sarcastic now,’ I tell her. ‘You should be impressed by the facts at my fingertips.’
‘I am. But how about this one? There’s this girl, let’s for the sake of argument call her Alison Smith—’
‘A likely name.’
‘Well, this Alison Smith girl is, was and will always be in love with you. How’s that for a fact, Mr Owen?’
‘It’s a good one,’ I say, laughing. ‘But if we’re being sickeningly cute let me give you a fact of my own. There’s this guy, let’s call him for the sake of argument Jim Owen—’
‘A likely name.’
‘Well, this Jim Owen guy thinks that you are officially the best thing since sliced bread. How’s that for a fact?’
‘Brilliant,’ she replies. ‘A girl can never tire of hearing those kinds of facts when they really mean something.’
4.35 p.m.
We’re standing in Grand Central Station. I tell Jim that this has to be the most beautiful building in the entire world. We stand watching the light stream through the windows at the top and I ask him why every single one of the hundreds of people in here isn’t staring up at the ceiling like we are. He says, ‘Because when you’ve got real life to contend with on a daily basis, stuff like this always takes second place to practicality. It’s the same with love. You take it for granted and after a while it becomes invisible.’
Monday, 25 August 1997
1.15 p.m.
We’re in Central Park, sitting on a bench opposite the entrance to the zoo. We’ve been here for half an hour or so, just people-watching before we go back to our hotel and start packing.
‘Do you think we’ll have kids one day?’ I ask Jim, as a couple walk by pushing a pram.
‘Um . . . one day,’ he replies. ‘How many do you want?’
‘Two, one of each. What about you?’
Jim doesn’t reply. Instead he just sort of shrugs as if he’s lost in a world of his own.
6.45 p.m.
We’re at JFK now. We should’ve been on the plane two hours ago but the flight back to London has been delayed because of electrical storms. I’ve never seen anything like it. Huge sheets of rain are coming down relentlessly against the large glass windows looking out on to the runway and every now and again there’s a bright flash and a huge crack, quickly followed by a deep roll of thunder. Jim’s oblivious to this. He’s in one of the news kiosks hunting around for a couple of hi-fi magazines for the flight. I watch him scanning the shelves and suddenly I feel sort of strange looking at him. It’s almost like one of those moments that people talk about in books . . . I feel like it’s just dawned on me that there isn’t anyone in the world I’d rather be with than him. And I know this is the moment everything falls into place. By the time I walk over to him to tell him my news I have a grin on my face.
