Twenty Something

by Iain Hollingshead

  There was a card shop next to M&S so I popped in and had an idle browse through the reduced Valentine’s merchandise. I realised with a jolt that this was the first year that I hadn’t sent any cards at all since I was thirteen and sent one to myself at school (which doesn’t really count). I bought one I thought Leila might like.

  ‘Saving up for next year?’ asked the smiley cashier.

  ‘Er, no. Have just been a bit disorganised,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Ah. In trouble with the lady, are we?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  I tuck it into my jacket and get into a mercifully empty lift at work. This time I’m not going to screw it up, this time I’m not going to screw it up — I repeat my mantra to myself. Round one: Shredded flowers and a little love loch of awkwardness. Round two: Piss-poor coffee conversation. Round three: A clumsily botched email seduction on Valentine’s Day. Round four: Knockout.

  Leila’s away from her desk, so I pluck out the embarrassingly large red envelope, hide it under my copy of the Financial Times (with which it clashes hideously) and open up a document on my computer so that I can have several goes at writing and editing the perfect droll message. After ten minutes or so, I’ve got it pretty much sussed. I open the card to transcribe it and, bugger me if the little bastard doesn’t start playing a song. ‘I believe in miracles, since you came along, you sexy thing’, etc.

  I slam the card shut, but it’s already too late. Not only are half the office looking in my direction, but Leila has returned from her meeting and is looking over my shoulder sniggering. Buddy is looking over her shoulder in fits of hysterics. I just have sufficient presence of mind to minimise the document on my screen before Buddy launches into prosecutor mode.

  ‘Nice shirt, Jacko, boy. You’ve ironed it in such a strange way that it looks like it’s come straight out of a packet this morning.’

  ‘Very good, Buddy. It did come out of a packet this morning.’

  ‘Dirty stopout. Who’s the lucky lady?’

  Was it my imagination, or did I see Leila wince at this point?

  ‘Rick was the lucky lady. I kipped over at his.’

  ‘And is the card for Rick, as well?’ He delivers his killer line.

  A little titter goes up around our section of the room. Twenty of the capital’s premier bankers laughing at a gay joke.

  Leila: ‘No, it’s for his granny. It’s a follow-up to the flowers.’

  The little cow of a crowd-pleasing sheep (if that makes any biological sense). Only she and I really understand the significance of her jibe, but it stings like someone’s rubbed citrus-flavoured excrement in my eyes. The crowd roars. Mingers have to crack funny jokes. Pretty girls only have to make an approximate stab at humour.

  I sink lower into my seat as Buddy twirls Leila around to the polyphonic tones of Hot Chocolate’s hit. I don’t believe in miracles. Water into wine? A magician could do that. But I could certainly do with a few conjuring tricks in my current excuse for a life.

  Monday 21st February

  Came back from work to find Flatmate Fred hopping around with another letter in his hands. It went like this:

  Dear Mr Hardy,

  Thank you for your ‘ashamed and remorseful’ letter. How considerate of you to lighten the workload of the Royal Mail and deliver it by hand. I must apologise for the delay in replying; it took us a few weeks to wipe away the soil.

  Thank you also for the kind donation of £1.25. Although this is approximately 0.5% of the value of the stolen winter-flowering cherry, it did allow me to buy a small café latte on the way home from work.

  You mention the forbidden fruit. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you what happened to Adam and Eve after eating the apple. If you don’t want to be sent forth from the Garden of Eden that is Onslow Mews, to till the ground whence you were taken, I suggest you come up with a more weighty sum of money in the very near future.

  Otherwise I would recommend that you ask Alcoholics Anonymous for your money back and donate it to a more suitable charity, such as Legal Aid.

  Kind regards,

  Bertrand Rogers MBE

  (aka Flower Person)

  ‘Oh buggeroonies. We’re doomed,’ says Flatmate Fred when I’ve finished reading the letter. ‘Shotgun, Big Black Ron takes you up the bum first in jail.’

  ‘No, we’re not,’ I reply calmly. ‘All we have to do is find a bit of extra cash and Mr Rogers will leave us alone.’

  ‘But he’s threatening us. He’s going to prosecute us.’

  ‘No, he’s not. He’s just playing Billy Big-Bollocks. We’ll pay him and then he’ll leave us alone.’

  I can see Flatmate Fred is still unconvinced. But then I look at the letter again and realise that it was addressed to him directly with the correct address.

  ‘Fred, how the hell did Mr Rogers know your name and address when you wrote him an anonymous letter signed “Stupid White Men”?’

  ‘Er, because I wrote it on headed notepaper.’

  ‘You silly, silly tit. You can find the money yourself.’

  Tuesday 22nd February

  My fitness obsession has got so bad that, as well as having my corporate membership, I’ve now joined a local gym.

  I don’t know why I bother. I mean, it’s hellish: the overweight women who look like they were poured into their Lycra and forgot to say when; the work-shy layabouts spending their dole money on Lucozade; the bored housewives who drive to the gym, walk on a treadmill while watching MTV, eat a Mars bar to celebrate the successful completion of their exercise routine, and then drive home again. Not to mention the middle-aged losers attempting to pull (the only time they’ll hear heavy breathing is on the running machine); the city traders trying to out-stomach-crunch the intern; or the Nuremberg workout classes with rows of people slavishly aping the hectoring instructions of the short, moustachioed person at the front.

  On the plus side, I now look a little better naked as long as I take a big breath and hold it in for several minutes.

  Wednesday 23rd February

  Leila’s intended Valentine Card followed Leila’s intended flowers into the shredder at work today, playing the little electronic ditty as it went. The final requiem of mangled miracles.

  I had thought of presenting it to her anyway — a grand, sweeping, comedic gesture — but she had annoyed me so much with her ‘Granny’ jibe that she was still in the doghouse as far as I was concerned. But when I got back from the shredder room, there was an email waiting for me.

  To: Jack Lancaster

  From: Leila Sidebottom

  Subject: Sorry

  Wednesday 23rd February 10.28

  Hey Jack, I just wanted to apologise for my joke about the card on Friday! I felt like a complete cow as soon as I said it!! Poor you, you looked so embarrassed! I hope you weren’t offended. It looked like a really sweet card, and I’m sure the lucky girl who received it was very touched. Can I buy you a drink some time to apologise properly?!?

  L

  xx

  OK, rather too many exclamation marks, but a five-star email regardless. Two kisses at the end — admittedly not capital ones — but two kisses nonetheless. And she signed it ‘L’ — L for Lucky Leila, L for love, lust and longing.

  Play it cool, Jack, I thought. Leave her to stew a little. Make her feel really guilty. Feign an aura of aloof mystique.

  I emailed her back three minutes later with four kisses. We’re going for a drink on Monday. And then I went to the gym to work on my abs a little more.

  L for Lancaster. L for loser.

  Friday 25th February

  This is hell at work. Now that Leila is sitting so close to me, I can’t concentrate on anything at all. She has to walk past me to get a coffee or to go to the loo, and I spend half the day trying to catch her eye and elicit a glass-shattering smile. I’m finding my Lent fast a little tougher than I thought.

  Returned home to find Flatmate Fred dressed in a suit.

  ‘Are you going out?
’ I ask.

  Most people get up in the morning and put on a suit to go to work. Then they come home and change into jeans before going out in the evening. Flatmate Fred gets up in the afternoon and stays in his dressing gown until 6pm. Then he gets changed into a suit to go out on the town.

  ‘No,’ he says morosely. ‘I’ve just had an interview.’

  I thought I’d misheard him. Flatmate Fred never uses the ‘I’ word. An interview is the first step towards having a job, and that’s a fate worse than death.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Data entry.’

  I snigger.

  ‘It’s not bloody funny. I’ve got no transferable marketplace skills and I need to pay Mr Rogers £300 hush money so they don’t set Big Black Ron on me.’

  I think this is just about as bloody funny as you can get.

  ‘Why don’t you get your dad to help you out?’

  ‘Cos he’s a blinking accountant and he makes me produce spreadsheets every month on how I spend my allowance. You know how he’s subsidising my writing career. This is his way of keeping tabs on me. I can’t put down “Miscellaneous — one stolen Prunus subhirtella”. He’d kill me.’

  I reflect that, if I were a financial whiz of a father and had a son like Flatmate Fred, I’d probably kill him anyway.

  But Flatmate Fred is adamant. He’s going to install broadband internet at home and do the first week of honest work in his life. And then he’s going to pay the Flower People to keep the bum-police at bay. I almost offered to bail him out myself, but he seems so energised by his new sense of purpose that I leave him be.

  Monday 28th February

  Donned my lucky boxer shorts, applied some of the aftershave that Lucy gave me for Christmas and went for a drink with Leila straight after work.

  It started off so well. Did she want a double? Of course she did — that more than doubled the chances of her sleeping with me. We talked about everything and anything. I delivered my top five anecdotes with exquisite timing. I laughed when she laughed, smiled when she smiled, and listened for over twenty minutes before drifting off and imagining what she would look like naked.

  We didn’t mention the Prunus subhirtella or the Valentine’s card or my granny. Leila’s endearingly oblivious to the effect she has on men. She’s sweet and funny and modest. It was fantastic.

  But then, at 10.30, she dropped the bombshell.

  ‘Jack, I’ve got something I need to tell you.’

  Check me out. Three double G&Ts and the most beautiful girl in the world is about to say that she likes me.

  ‘OK.’ I smile my most boyish, charming smile. ‘You can tell me anything you want.’

  ‘I fancy Buddy.’

  She could tell me anything she wanted apart from that.

  ‘As in Buddy Wilton-Steer Buddy?’

  ‘Yep, I just think he’s so cute. He’s so direct, so confident, so lacking in British cynicism.’

  ‘Right.’

  No Jack, not right: wrong, wrong, wrong.

  ‘I mean, I know you’re mates with him. I was wondering if you could perhaps find out subtly for me. In whatever way you blokes do that kind of thing. Just don’t embarrass me — I couldn’t carry on at work if I messed something up.’

  And just how does she expect me to carry on at work knowing this?

  ‘Sure,’ I say, just about holding myself together. ‘I can do some research. But you should know that he’s already got a girlfriend that he cheats on regularly.’

  Was that the right thing to say? I muse, as I walk home. If she’s the kind of girl I’d like her to be, then that would put her right off. If she’s not, then it might just stoke the fire. Either way, I’m in trouble. Buddy is as single and as desperate as I am, and she prefers him to me.

  Round five: Failure.

  Bugger.

  MARCH

  Wednesday 2nd March

  Buddy swings by my desk at work.

  ‘Jacko, my son,’ he appears to be adopting a more British vernacular. ‘How about a coffee?’

  Leila looks up expectantly from the other side of our desk. She gives me the tiniest of nods.

  ‘Sure, Buddy. Let’s go.’

  Buddy’s idea of a coffee is four espresso shots and five lumps of sugar. I wonder idly whether he might die of a heart attack before he finds out that Leila likes him. He did ninety hours in the office last week. His hands are already shaking.

  ‘Jackie, my boy, I really like that Leila chick.’

  ‘You like her, or just want to screw her?’

  ‘Don’t be a jerk, Jacko. Of course I just want to screw her. You had a drink with her last Monday. Did she say anything?’

  I meet Buddy’s gaze.

  ‘No, mate. Nothing at all, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Are you sure? You can tell me.’

  ‘Well, actually mate,’ I put on my best doctor-breaking-bad-news face, ‘I did ask her if she fancied anyone at work, and she said no. Sorry.’

  As I walk back to my desk, Leila raises her eyebrows and I give her a sympathetic little shake of my head. There’s already a one-word email waiting for me from her: ‘So?’ No kiss this time.

  So I explain that Buddy is very much in love with his current girlfriend and wants to remain faithful to her. I also write that he doesn’t fancy anyone at work.

  Leila emails back: ‘You’re a star, Jack. Feel much better now that I know. Always better to get these things sorted out, don’t you think? I loved our drink on Monday. Let’s have lunch tomorrow.’

  Am I a star? I feel more like a shitbag. I console myself with the thought that I was trying to protect her from Buddy’s predatory one-track mind. But I know deep down that I was motivated by rancid jealousy, and that they’re both going to find me out.

  Thursday 3rd March

  Talking of finding people out, I came home slightly early from work today to find a flushed Flatmate Fred desperately trying to close all the windows on his computer. It was his first day of broadband internet access and his first day of work.

  ‘Aha! Welcome to the world of work. How goes the data entry?’ I ask, craning my head forward to look at his screen.

  ‘Oh, good. Yeah — tiring,’ he blushes traffic-light red.

  A pop-up page flashes on to the screen: ‘Free tits here’, it screams.

  ‘Oh yes,’ mumbles Flatmate Fred. ‘One or two teething virus problems with the broadband connection.’

  I look closer and discover exactly why he is so tired by the world of work. He has at least ten pages open that have something to do with sex. Lolitas, uniform, teens, lesbians, facials, anal, threesomes, toys. The deviant list is seemingly endless.

  ‘Who’s the data entry actually for?’ I ask. ‘Hugh Hefner?’

  ‘Er, no. I was doing some research for my book.’

  ‘I thought you’d given up writing for Lent.’

  Poor Flatmate Fred. Well and truly stumped, he ran out for a much-needed shower.

  But it got me thinking. The internet is for porn. Everyone knows that. Sure, it might be useful every now and again to pay a bill online or book cheap flights, but essentially it’s a convenient way of looking at naked girls without the old-fashioned embarrassment of walking into a newsagent’s and trying to reach the top shelf. Even the shortest of short-arses can access a mouse.

  I’m always struck by the hypocrisy of anyone who uses the internet in this way. Broadband service providers write a great deal of guff in their contracts about using the internet in a non-offensive way. But they know perfectly well that the biggest selling point of a broadband connection is the fact that you can access porn much faster. No one cares if it takes a little while to book your cinema tickets. It does bother you if a porn clip keeps stalling halfway through because your dial-up connection is too rubbish to deal with it.

  Access someone’s computer and it will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about them. Which keywords have they typed into Google? How many times a week have they whacked off whil
e watching two people they don’t know have sex?

  My parents’ generation, and the generation before them, is always going on about the lax moral standards of today’s youth. But it was much easier to be moral back then. You had to go out looking for temptation. Nowadays it’s only a right click, left click, double click away.

  Friday 4th March

  Second lunch in a row with Leila and people are beginning to gossip in the office. Most people here don’t socialise together. It hurts more if you get promoted and have to sack a friend.

  But let them gossip. All the little details that normally bore me about someone are fascinating when it comes to her. I’m genuinely interested to hear about her dad’s army career, her love of Damien Rice, her phobia about stickers and the adventures of her first pet — a half-blind guinea pig called Nelson. It’s mundane, but she’s so fit, fun and amusing that I could listen to her all day. I don’t even mind that she was born in Yorkshire.

  ‘I went to the north once,’ I told her, ‘when I missed my tube stop at Moorgate.’

  And she even laughed at that. I spent two hours in the gym to celebrate.

  Saturday 5th March

  I was carrying out my monthly check in the shower this morning when I chanced upon a lump in my left testicle. I’m going to die a slow and horrible death, unloved and unmourned.

  I tell this to Flatmate Fred.

  ‘Jack, you’re the biggest hypochondriac in the world.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  Aren’t we a little old for this?

  ‘No, seriously, Jack. What do you do every time you have a headache?’

  ‘I put my chin on my chest to check if I’ve got meningitis.’

  Hmm, maybe he has a point.