Straight Talking
Page 13
“Well?” I push. “Shooting the breeze or shooting something else?”
Martin looks embarrassed but Mel just laughs. “Ignore her,” she says, giving me a shove. “We’re just talking. It turns out we both studied at the same place.”
“No!” I exclaim in surprise, which unfortunately comes out sounding ever so slightly sarcastic. I rectify matters by asking politely, “Did you know each other?”
“I was there a few years before actually,” says Martin.
“Which would make you, hmm? Let’s see, thirty-six?”
“Stop it,” warns Mel, laughing.
“Stop what? So, Martin, are you married?”
“Nope.”
“When was your last relationship?”
“A year ago.”
“Why did you break up?”
“We just grew apart.”
“So you don’t have a fear of commitment, then, Martin?”
“Are you sure you’re not a therapist too?”
“Evasion. Answer the question.”
We’re all laughing as he shakes his head, “No, I don’t have a fear of commitment.”
“Children?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Where do you live?”
“Hampstead-ish.”
“—ish?”
“South End Green.”
“Hampstead-ish. Yes, you pass the test, Martin whatever-your-surname is, welcome to our lives.”
Martin’s grinning broadly and he leans over and gives me a huge kiss on the cheek. “That was the most unusual welcome I’ve ever had.”
“Sorry,” says Mel, “but we love her anyway. God, Tash, I’m surprised you didn’t ask Martin his annual income.”
“Damn.” I slap my leg. “I knew I’d forgotten something.”
Martin stands up and says he’s going to get a drink. I’m fine with my Pimms, and Mel asks for a mineral water.
“So, tell me, tell me, tell me.”
“Tell you what, Tasha? That I’ve been having a very interesting chat with a very nice guy?”
“Yeah, but that’s not all it is, I can tell, I’ve known you long enough.”
“Tasha, Martin’s lovely, but I’m already in a relationship. When are you going to stop pairing me up with people. I’m very happy.”
But there’s doubt in her eyes and I can’t stop myself mumbling, “With Daniel the asshole? I think not.”
“So where’s the hunk then? Has he turned up?”
“No, he bloody hasn’t.” But then I think, shit, he might be here, he might have arrived while I was up here and someone else, someone in a lime green shirt and A-line skirt might have her claws in him already.
But just then the door opens and Andy runs in. “God, I’ve met the most amazing man,” she says, as Mel and I start to laugh. “Did you see him, Tash? The one talking to Daniel?” I nod. “Isn’t he gorgeous?” I nod again, smiling, relieved that just this once, she’s not competition.
“He said he’d stay later if I wanted and help me clear up. Wish me luck!” she says with a wink, and she’s gone.
Mel and I stand up and I turn to her with a quizzical look. “Aren’t you going to stay here and wait for the lovely Martin?”
Mel smooths down the front of her tunic-dress thing. “No, I’ll come with you, I’ve been up here ages, Daniel will be wondering where I am.”
At two o’clock in the morning my doorbell rings. Fast asleep, a bell seems to be ringing in my dreams, and finally, after the third time I wake up. What the fuck is going on?
Stumbling into a dressing gown, my head still groggy with alcohol, I shout out, “Hello? Who is it?”
Nothing. I put the chain on the door and open it to see Mel, hair all over the place, red-rimmed eyes and cardigan done up with all the buttons in the wrong buttonholes, looking, in other words, bloody terrible.
“Mel? What’s the matter?” I undo the chain and put my arms around her just as her face starts to collapse and tears start pouring from her eyes.
“He, he he . . .” She can’t talk, her sobs are growing stronger and she’s fighting to talk. “He’s left me. What am I going to do? What am I going to do?”
Fear of abandonment is a phrase bandied about by everyone I know who’s ever been in therapy, or into pop psychology. We sit there and discuss the reasons behind it for hours, with very serious looks on our faces as we each try to outdo one another with the pain of our abandonment.
But the odd thing is that even when we’re terrified of being left, when we decide we’ve had enough of the fuckers, when we decide we want to go it alone, we can handle it. We can cope with the pain because it’s our decision, and in a strange way we take strength from that.
But heaven forbid it should be their decision. No matter how unhappy we are, how low our self-esteem has sunk, when they turn around, out of the blue and tell us they’re leaving, they’ve had enough, we collapse, turning into heartbroken children all over again.
So I lead Mel into the living room and sit her down on the sofa, not removing my arm from around her shoulders, and I let her lean her head against my body and cry until she manages to compose herself.
“What am I going to do?” she keeps repeating. “What am I going to do?”
Eventually the story comes out. Daniel ignored her for the rest of the party, and on the way home started his usual litany of how she could improve herself.
“He told me I was ridiculous, that I was flirting with Martin who would never be interested in me because I was in such a state. He told me I’d put on weight, that I looked dowdy, frumpy, and ugly. He said he was only with me out of habit, and it was a good job because if he wasn’t I’d never find another man.”
I’m so horrified I can’t think of what to say and she continues. “I was so upset I told him that actually Martin did fancy me and he wanted my phone number but I didn’t give it to him, I told him I was already in a relationship.
“He said that quite frankly he’d had enough of taking me out and being embarrassed and maybe I should be with someone like Martin instead, who he seems to think is infinitely inferior to him.”
“Oh, God, Mel, then what?”
“Then we got home and he started packing my clothes in a suitcase. He told me I should get out and go to Martin, that he didn’t want me around anymore, that he should have done this years ago.” And with this comes a fresh round of sobs.
What do you say when your friend splits up with a bastard and comes around to cry on your shoulder? All the usual epithets come out—you deserve better; you’ll find someone else; he’s never treated you well—but you know that nothing will make them feel better.
So I just listen thinking, Why do we bother, why do any of us bother, and eventually, when Mel’s cried out, I put her to bed and sit in my kitchen with a cup of tea and a hundred cigarettes, and I wonder where we’ve all gone wrong.
13
It’s been three weeks and Daniel the asshole hasn’t bothered to call Mel. Oh no, I am the one who has to phone him to arrange a convenient time—eight o’clock on a bloody Monday morning—to pick up her stuff.
And what does the bastard do as soon as I walk in? Lunges at me, telling me he’s always fancied me and now he is a free agent too, why don’t we get it together? I can’t believe his audacity, I am so damned shocked I can’t even speak.
It is only when he moves toward me and presses against me until I am backed up against a wall that I finally find my voice.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Ice-cold and hard as steel.
“Come on, Tasha, you know you want to.”
“Jesus, you’re disgusting. I’m amazed that Mel stayed with you as long as she did, and, incidentally, even if I were to take you up on your offer I know I’d be disappointed.”
His expression suddenly changes, the leer replaced by uncertainty. “What do you mean?”
“Well, not that Mel is indiscreet, but let’s just say that my four-year-old cousin is better hung than
you.”
That gets him. He moves away immediately and doesn’t say another word, while I push past him and run round the flat trying to find everything on the list Mel had hurriedly scribbled last night.
Aromatherapy oils in basket in bathroom (leave the patchouli,—it’s disgusting!)
Scarf Emma gave me for my birthday (purple with silver mirrors—in left-hand cupboard).
Birkenstock sandals under the bed.
Contents of drawer in left bedside table.
Papier-mâché jewelry box on dressing table and all contents within.
Wok in kitchen. (Not Habitat one—one from China in bottom cupboard)
Gray box files on top bookshelf in living room.
I keep passing Daniel as I run downstairs with my arms full of boxes; he is sitting at the kitchen table pretending to read the Daily Telegraph, refusing to look up as I clatter about.
Eventually it is just the wok, and I march purposefully into the kitchen, looking in horror at the state it’s in. Piles of filthy washing-up overflowing out of the sink. Three filthy pots encrusted with food on the stove and a few flies buzzing round hoping to be fed.
“Oh, new pets?” I ask sarcastically.
“What are you talking about?”
“The flies. I’m assuming they’re pedigree. Must have cost a fortune.”
“Haven’t you finished here yet?” he says, looking more and more pissed off.
“Yup,” I say breezily, pulling the wok out of the cupboard. “I’m off, and do give us a call if you want the name of a good cleaner,” I shout as I disappear down the hallway, slamming the front door before he even has a chance to reply.
It’s my show today, and I leave Mel’s stuff in the car as I run around like a panicked bride checking that everything’s OK.
The guests have all arrived and there have been no last-minute changes, and David and Annalise are in the studio going through their daily half-hour haphazard rehearsal.
“I don’t like this,” whines Annalise. “Teen Chic sounds a bit old-hat. Can’t we call it anything else?”
“It is teenage fashion,” says David, trying to placate her. “I think it’s fine.”
“What would you suggest, Annie?” I say into my microphone that travels down to her earpiece.
“Well, what about Teenage Trendsetters?”
“Fine,” I sigh. Once again Annie is trying to make changes just for the sake of being difficult. Any minute now she’ll start spouting off about how she’s a journalist so she should know better.
“I am a journalist,” she smiles graciously at the camera, knowing I’m watching, “and headlines were my business.”
Actually headlines weren’t her damned business, and if she’d have ever worked for a newspaper she would have known that an editor or a copy editor writes the headlines, not a bloody journalist. But no, Annalise joined the company as a cub reporter straight out of college doing ridiculous features at the end of the local news on any wacky events that happened to be going on in Hertfordshire, or wherever the hell her television company was based.
And because these soft items happened to be shown at the end of the news, Annalise decided she was a journalist. She wouldn’t know a news story if Bob Monkhouse planted a bomb in her Mazda MX5.
“Five minutes to go,” I hear the floor manager say, and, shit, I have to phone Mel before the show starts.
Mel’s still staying with me and I have to admit I quite like it. Not that I’m into flat-sharing as a rule, but it makes such a change to have company. We’ve been acting like a couple of teenagers, jumping on one another’s beds and giggling long into the night.
And you know, even though she’s still going through pain, I think this has brought us even closer together, if that’s possible. I’ve learned so much stuff about Mel since she’s been staying. I’ve learned her stories.
We all have stories, God knows you’re probably sick to death of hearing mine, but unless you’ve got a huge mouth like me, it’s rare to hear them. You might hear a few, over the years, but you never hear enough to have the full picture. You form a person in your mind from the stories they tell you but on the rare occasions you have enough time to spend with someone to bond with them, that person in your mind changes, and your friendship enters a whole new level.
Three years into my friendship with Mel I thought she was wonderful. Slightly scatty, full of love, and someone who was very comfortable with who she is.
But these last three weeks I’ve learned that Mel doesn’t really like herself. That she sees herself through Daniel’s eyes and that her relationship with him has gradually worn her down. That she too thinks she is dowdy, frumpy, and unattractive, and that she does want to be more like me. And Andy, and Emma.
I’ve learned about her childhood, and we’ve gazed at one another in amazement as we realized how similar they were. That her mother also told her she wasn’t good enough, and that Daniel was her mother, in masculine guise.
We’ve buoyed one another up these last three weeks, and we’ve shared more than some friends share in a lifetime together.
And I’ve also learned that she has an incredible strength. That despite missing Daniel every second of every day, she is willing to get on with her life, to give life a go.
But that doesn’t mean she should miss today’s call-in. I catch her before she leaves to go to her clinic.
“Hi darling, it’s me. You have to watch the show today, at quarter to twelve you have to be watching the television set.”
“I can’t,” she says. “My patient won’t be too happy if I say excuse me if I watch a bit of TV in the middle of our session.”
“Damn. OK, set the VCR then and we’ll both watch it when you come home. You know how to set a VCR, don’t you?”
“Of course, I’m not stone age woman, you know.” I don’t bother adding that I haven’t got a bloody clue how to set my own, and on the rare occasions I tape something I have to make sure I’m there at the beginning to press the Play and Record buttons together.
“OK. I’ll see you later.”
“Have a good one. Big kiss.” Mel blows me a kiss and then we’re on air.
At 11:38 Annalise and David introduce our special celebrity guest. Molly Turner is one of these women who is famous for being famous. No one is exactly sure what she does, except she seems to have made a damn good career from shagging famous men.
Every time one of her new affairs starts they pose happily in Hello! and she announces that this time it’s true love. This time they’re going to get married. The woman must have had ten engagement rings, each of them big fuck-off solitaire sparklers.
Her age is indeterminate, but she’ll admit to being thirty-eight. I suspect she’s more like forty-eight, but she looks damn good. She ought to, the amount of times the surgeon’s attacked her with his knife.
And now she’s on to talk about her latest affair that just went wrong. Richard Beer is one of the world’s wealthiest men, and their engagement party made it into every tabloid—three hundred of their closest friends, most of whom they’d never seen before in their life.
Molly thinks she’s here to plug her latest facial exercise book, but after a minute of talking about the book, David launches in.
“So, Molly,” he says before she’s finished telling us fascinated viewers how much her book is selling for, “our call-in today is When Love Goes Sour. This is presumably something you can relate to. Is it true that it’s all over between you and Richard Beer?”
Molly smiles graciously and runs a perfectly manicured hand through her russet red bob. True professional limelight-hogger that she is, she doesn’t give a hoot if she talks about her personal life instead of plugging her book. Hell, she’s on television, isn’t she, still glamorous, still famous.
“Well, David,” she purrs in her mid-Atlantic accent, although rumor has it she was born in the projects in Birmingham. “I’m in love with love, and every time it comes along I get swept off my feet.”
“Darling, when you’ve been engaged as many times as I have you lose count.”
“So tell us what happened with Richard Beer?” says David, who seems to be losing himself in the green of Molly’s eyes.
“I was really in love with Richard, and Richard was really in love with me. It was perhaps the most passionate affair of my life, but sometimes things don’t work out the way you plan.”
“The papers, although they’re probably wrong,” (David covering himself as usual), “reported that he left you for a young model. How did you feel?”
“Delighted for him. Naturally I was upset when he told me, it was via e-mail as well, and of course I have no idea how to work the computer at home so I didn’t find out for a week, but if he wants to leave me for someone else, some model, that’s his choice, and now I will move on to the next.”
“But hadn’t the model—Cora Cherry, wasn’t it?—hadn’t she been a guest at your home in the South of France? That must have been terrible, knowing it was going on under your roof.”
“Richard’s a wonderful man who loves beautiful things. Cora is not only beautiful, she’s also very sweet, so in some ways it was almost inevitable.”
Annie laughs in disbelief. “I’m amazed you’re being so magnanimous.” Ooh, we all shout in the gallery, Good word, Annie.
“I’ve been through this too many times to be upset,” says Molly, looking remarkably happy about it. “I wish Cora good luck. Maybe she’ll be better equipped to deal with his more . . .” she pauses. “More . . . unusual habits.”
Annalise perks up. “Unusual habits? What sort of unusual habits?”
“Well, Richard is a collector of beautiful things, of paintings, rare Lalique glass, vintage Ferraris, and women. If he wants something he will generally buy it, and money is no object, particularly when it comes to women.”