Don't You Forget About Me

by Mhairi McFarlane

  ‘He’s Bobby to her Whitney,’ Clem had said, ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t get her into smoking crack.’

  We’ve briefly talked to a friend of a colleague from Rav’s work called Julia who I can tell likes Rav, but when I mention this he says:

  ‘Nothing in common.’

  ‘Nothing in common’ is Rav’s catchphrase dismissal.

  ‘You know you say you want to meet this super bright woman who can wear a red trilby and wants to do the Inca trail and so on?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You are super bright. You look good in a red trilby, and can go to Peru any time you like. Why not accept a woman who isn’t these things, and be these things yourself? Let her bring other things.’

  ‘Are you saying I should be the woman I want to date in the world?’

  ‘Exactly this.’

  ‘Hmm. I mean, I suppose … I see your point.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Rav is in a circle of acolytes on the dancefloor, Night Fever-ing away, Julia circling him.

  ‘Your hair is priddy,’ says a man nearby, in an American accent. ‘Kinda like – prom hair?’

  I turn to see a heavy-set, bearded, thirty-ish man in a pink shirt, with a friendly, open face.

  ‘Ed,’ he says, proffering his hand.

  ‘Hi, Ed. Georgina.’

  Ed has moved from Minnesota to lecture on American literature at the university. We talk animatedly about writing, about Sheffield, I tell him about Share Your Shame, half-shouting behind cupped hand.

  For the next twenty minutes, he tells me about Minnesota. Aaaaand for the next twenty minutes after that, too. My part is over.

  All of a sudden, in American Ed, I see the ghosts of relationships past. It’s not often, in your life, you step outside a pattern you create, and see the pattern.

  It’s not Ed’s fault, but this is how every fling in my twenties began: with some nice enough lad liking me, and me feeling duty bound to reward that. Give him a chance.

  I already know how the first date for pizza goes, and the second in a wine bar, and the sex after that. Me astride his sturdy form, like I’m in a canoe, doing fake moans to hurry it along while he mashes my breasts together as if he’s building sandcastles.

  Trying desperately to convince myself we complement each other and I’m falling in love and maybe This Is It and you know, as Mum says, if you want kids. By month four, when he’s discussing what package holiday we should book next summer and it sounds as appealing being held on remand in HMP Barlinnie, accepting it’s time to pull the plug before I really hurt him. Realising that you don’t become a writer by dating one. Or a comedian, or anything else for that matter.

  Ed’s holding his phone in his palm, expectantly. It’s in no way his fault that I’ve lived our whole affair in my head, in the time it takes to get my mobile out of my beaded clutch bag.

  ‘You’re welcome to have my number,’ I say, ‘but I’m not dating much or interested in dating at the moment. If you ever want a waitress-eye view of life in the city, or a quote about something, or a pint with a friendly face, you’re very welcome.’

  ‘I have enough friends,’ he says, but after keying in my digits.

  ‘Lucky you, then,’ I reply.

  Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’ starts.

  ‘I love this, excuse me!’ I say.

  It might a bit on the nose to dance on my own to this song, but it feels great all the same. I’m not going to do this any more – feel I’m validated by male interest, or get involved with whoever turns up. It’s OK to turn nice guys down. I’m fine as I am.

  As it reaches the second chorus, and I’m having a rapturous moment, I feel a bump on my arse and turn round to see Ed, singing along, getting the words wrong, trying to hold onto my waist as he grinds his hips against me.

  Sigh.

  28

  I know the Battle of Elephant’s Foot with Geoffrey was bad when I get an email from Mark. It pings on my phone at an ungodly, efficient person’s hour on Monday and I traipse downstairs to answer it on my computer because it’s larger than my phone, with a strong coffee.

  My film star dress is crumpled on its hanger and reality has returned, after an interlude of major hangover. Here was a frisson, though: while in jogging bottoms watching episodes of Dawson’s Creek through the holes in a fabric face mask, I texted Lucas. I’ve read the exchange six times.

  Do I thank you or sue you for how I feel today? I need a Keith Richards style whole body blood transfusion #freeSambuca

  Hah! Bad head? Hope you had a nice time (and didn’t fall out of any coconut trees)

  Great, thank you very much for the special service (Coconut trees?)

  (It was a joke about Keith Richards) (Google it if you have the energy) And my pleasure x

  It’s not exactly the letters between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda but the unexpected appearance of a sign-off kiss is a warmth I shall cling to.

  Karen’s left a note for me too. Good-oh.

  MORNING.

  Your turtle is weirding me out. It was staring at me while I ate dinner last night and smells like cabbage. Please can we move it from that position by the telly, it’s not necessary to let it dominate the room.

  PS also are its toenails normal they look like a dinosaur’s

  Poor Jammy. I go to check on him, stroke his rough scaly head with my index finger and feed him some gem lettuce. I knew Karen would agree to me having Jammy and then kick off. It took a lot of wheedling and sweetener gifts and promises to bung in more for the bills, as obviously a tortoise is a heat sponge and water user. And he has to go in the living room: there’s no way I could get Jammy’s hutch up two flights of narrow stairs.

  I flip open my old Dell laptop, and re-read Mark’s missive. He’s Esther’s nuclear option to talk me round. Given his reluctance to scrap, she deploys this weapon sparingly, knowing overuse will diminish its efficacy. The last time I remember Mark trying to broker a settlement was when I refused to wear the real fur stole – with a little petrified rodent face with yellowed teeth like pins, no less – Mum had chosen when I was bridesmaid to her.

  Hi G! Hope you’re well. Look I will get straight to it, you know I don’t usually get involved in this sort of thing but apparently your mum is having conniptions about you avoiding her since you and Geoff had words, and Esther is getting it in the ear. E doesn’t want to push you in case you think she’s on your mum’s side yadda yadda. Do you want to at least tell your mum you’re taking some time out? I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just a brother-in-law, stood in front of a girl, asking her to love him enough to stop him having to listen to your sister wittering on.

  Which one was that? Four Weddings? Love, Mark xx

  Hi Mark. OK. Given it’s YOU.

  Xx

  PS Notting Hill, I believe

  Mark is clearly at his desk and in need of distraction because before my toast has popped he replies:

  Ahhhh the one with the actress?

  M

  … They all have actresses in?

  G

  No I meant ABOUT an actress. Oh and I meant to ask, how are you finding it at The Wicker? Mainly dealt with Devlin, seemed a very decent sort of chap. Got to know a fella here when he needed someone in the city to do the accounts.

  He’s great and the pub is great! Thanks again x

  It did make me laugh when he and his brother came in, I think we were expecting some magnates in pinstripes and the look was very off-duty rock star. But that’s the difference when you’ve made your money in the pubs and clubs trade I guess. Most of our clients are a lot greyer. Ooops, shouldn’t be typing this on company email. Deleted in 3, 2, 1 …

  Magnates? They just own a couple of pubs in Dublin, don’t they?

  I chew my slice of granary with Marmite contemplatively and hope Mark enlightens me, and doesn’t mean by deleting he’ll be deleting any replies.

  Oh my dear sweet unmaterialistic sister-in-law! They ‘just’ own three places in central
Dublin, outright, not leased – do you know how much property is worth there? – and a place a few miles outside, in an area called Dun Laoghaire. Which to give you an idea, is the kind of postcode where Bono has a pad. Portfolio of millions. Took over the family business from the dad I think, a little dynasty. Right, annual review meeting beckons – SUCH JOY. Thanks for being a mensch as always. Mx

  I close the laptop and turn this over, adjusting my view of the McCarthys. I knew they were men of decent means, but seriously rich? That had flown over my head. As he said, they don’t dress like it.

  It’s a bit ungenerous of me, but I wonder if their unusual easy-going fairness is borne of always setting the pace themselves, not being in any stress over cash flow or under the cosh from someone further up the chain of command. That could as easily make you a tinpot Hitler, if you were that way inclined, I remonstrate with myself.

  Through my morning shower, getting dressed and made up, I can’t stop thinking about this latest twist. Had the cool cabal at sixth form known this, I have a feeling Lucas would’ve been reassessed and promoted. It’s to his credit that he never dropped a word of this, not even to me.

  To think I was supposedly the greater catch at school. Ha. Supposed by who, though.

  With a deep breath, wishing I still smoked, I call Mum on my way into work. Like Esther, I think a conversation with a neutrally imposed time limit is a good thing. Unlike with Esther, I quickly glean it’s not going to be very amicable.

  ‘At last! I wondered if we were ever to speak again,’ Mum says.

  ‘Oh, as if,’ I say, immediately returned to being fourteen years old by the parental dynamic. A worn groove.

  ‘You could’ve handled this with a little more grace, Georgina, than to simply start stonewalling me.’

  ‘I was busy and I didn’t want to get into an argument.’

  ‘There will be no need for that if you simply apologise to Geoffrey. He’s being very level headed about it, now he’s simmered down. We’re very fortunate to have him.’

  I stop dead in the middle of Northfield Road, mouth agape.

  ‘What? He should be saying sorry to me!’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Uhm … let’s see, saying my life was a mess, calling me selfish, implying I’m a bit of a slapper, laughing at my job. Calling my life a disaster. Saying Dad was an arsehole.’

  Mum’s quiet for a few seconds and I know full well that Geoffrey has not provided these details.

  ‘Funnily enough, he said you were the one who was aggressive. You threw his very generous offer of a job back in his face, made jokes about how you’d rather go into prostitution instead and got very rude and sarcastic at the notion you’d even consider working for a central heating firm. I’m not sure where you get the superiority from, young lady, as from where I’m standing you have nothing to lose from accepting.’

  How do I say: your husband is a malicious liar?

  Mum isn’t only sticking up for him as he’s her pay cheque and Lord Protector, I sense. The overselling of Geoffrey’s tale clearly shows that she’s decided she desperately wants me to take a nice safe position in an office, overseen by him, beholden to him. She wants me to be like her. How long before some twitchy chinless son of an MD would be pointed in my direction, too. (‘He’s flying up the corporate ladder and a very smartly turned out young man. At your age, you could do a lot worse.’)

  ‘I already have a job I like a lot and after the way I was treated by Geoffrey I wouldn’t want to owe him anything, thanks.’

  A pause where I gather Mum is tutting.

  ‘It’s a mystery to myself and Geoff why you are so unwilling to let us help you.’

  ‘If you want to help me then I wouldn’t mind a bit of faith and emotional support, thanks.’

  ‘Georgina, you’re still working in bars at thirty. You have no savings, no pension, no home. No relationship. What am I supposed to emotionally support, exactly?’

  ‘Me, as a person? Aren’t I enough?’ I say, pretending to be coolly in control and not on the verge of tears. ‘I’m happy.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, in a clipped voice.

  ‘And you should give some thought to giving Robin a second chance.’

  ‘You … what? Robin? Why? You couldn’t stand him.’

  ‘We ran into him in Waitrose, last week, week before last. We both reached for the same jar of peanut butter, hahaha! Didn’t he tell you?’

  This causes my stomach to plummet. What the … my hands are immediately sweating on my phone and I grip it so tightly I think it might shatter. I can’t let her know what a nasty shock this is.

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  ‘Oh, I thought he would have done. He explained how things had been quite casual between you and he’d upset you by saying so, you’d split up and now he really wants to commit. I think he means it, Georgina. Sometimes it takes the right woman to make a man grow up and settle down.’

  The thought of this spectacle by the Condiments and Spreads aisle turns my stomach.

  ‘Why did he feel the need to tell you this?’

  ‘He felt we’d misunderstood his intentions towards you. He might not want you to know this but he’s really rather gooey about you. I didn’t realise what a solid family he’s from himself.’

  ‘How long were you talking for?’

  ‘Only five minutes. He seemed very pleased to see us.’

  I bet.

  ‘Solid family’, HAH. He’s hinted he’s from a minted background and now Mum’s opinion of him has shot up. With Geoffrey, Robin’s appealed to his ego, shown due deference to their status as elders of this village. Now Robin has bent and scraped and begged for their approval, shared sensitive intel to sweeten the deal, they’re prepared to back his cause. The whole thing makes me want a scalding shower.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, forcing myself to concentrate, ‘Did you tell Robin where I was working at the moment? At The Wicker?’

  ‘Oh … I think it came up? Yes, yes it did, as we were discussing Geoff’s idea of making his offer to you. And you might be interested to hear that Robin think it’s fantastic too.’

  Mum says this with a ‘ta-dah!’ rabbit out of the hat flourish. How could she not see they were being played? Whose personality turns 180 degrees like that? I could be sick. I make hasty excuses about being at work, when there’s five minutes left to the route, to churn on everything she’s said.

  Oh, Lucas. You’re wise. Robin is malign. And, unless I make him, I don’t think he’s going to stop.

  I’m in dire need of comic relief and The Wicker considerately supplies.

  ‘Steady as she blows!’ Devlin says as I dump my stuff behind the bar, as two men, knees bent, huffing and wheezing, drop a multicoloured Wurlitzer jukebox by the fireplace.

  ‘Where’s that on its way to?’ Lucas says, staring.

  Dev slaps its flank and beams like a new father. ‘Isn’t she special?’

  ‘It is not gendered and no, it’s fucking hideous. What’s it for?’

  Kitty and I exchange a ‘here we go’ delighted glance. McCarthy brother bickering is a constant.

  ‘Music!’

  ‘What next, a Sky Sports big screen?’ Lucas said. ‘Ugh. It means an endless soundtrack of Metallica and Girls Aloud.’

  ‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’

  ‘Absolutely no way, Dev. Call them back to take it away. God almighty we’ve got “traditional” and “craft ale” everywhere. Why not run a place with a plastic leprechaun outside and have done? Serve cocktails the colour of Care Bears?’

  ‘Do you ever think hospitality was the wrong fit for you?’

  ‘It’s called taste, Dev, get some.’ Lucas seems rattier than usual.

  He exits with Keith in tow and Devlin huffs and Kitty and I laugh.

  ‘You wouldn’t think someone as lush as Lucas would be single, would you?’ Kitty says, once Dev’s upstairs clattering about in the event room and it’s the two
of us.

  ‘Perhaps he’s not,’ I say, mildly, sipping my water.

  ‘He is, his wife died and he doesn’t have a girlfriend.’

  Jeez, Devlin. ‘His brother said that?’

  ‘No, Lucas did. I asked him if he has anyone back in Dublin and he said no and I said oh you’re not married then or anything I thought you would be and he said well I was but she died. I said what of and he said of cancer. I said are you seeing anyone now and he said no.’

  ‘Maybe he’s not ready yet, after losing his wife like that.’

  ‘No he said it wasn’t that at all, he’s well ready but he’d not met anyone he was into and that he had a jawbone view of human nature and that most people only let you down.’

  ‘A jawbone view?’

  ‘A long word like that. Def began with J.’

  ‘Ja … jaundiced?’

  ‘Yeah! I thought that was when you turn yellow.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘He thinks most people turn yellow?’

  ‘No.’ Running at two speeds, with one of those speeds being ‘Kitty,’ is hard work. I isolate what’s bothering me:

  ‘I never thought Lucas was that chatty.’ I feel slightly put out that he’s opening up to Kitty and not to me.

  ‘He isn’t ’cos after that I asked him what his type was and he said he’d rather not talk about his personal life thank you and did I think the barrel of Pale Rider was on the tilt.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Don’t you think the tragic wife thing makes him even fitter though?’ Kitty says, nipping her straw between rabbity front teeth.

  ‘Hahaha, what?’

  ‘You know, knowing he’s sad. You want to perk him up with a bit of sex, don’t you.’

  I almost spit my water.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Kitty says. ‘To be nice!’

  ‘Yeah but you don’t … people don’t say things like that,’ I say.

  I wish I could simply find that funny.

  What if she offers? What if he says yes? What if that happens with the next girl they hire? For the first time I contemplate Lucas sleeping with another member of staff and me having to hear lurid accounts of the boss from the night before and pretend to snigger along with it. I could tolerate the phone numbers on beer mats because they reliably hit a brick wall. But sooner or later, law of averages, when there’s women flying at him from all sides? Argh.