by Andy Jones
‘Take it for me,’ I say to Holly. ‘I’m going to the bar. Same again all round?’
‘Same again,’ everyone choruses.
‘Okay,’ says Holly as I walk away from the table. ‘You’ve got red on you.’
In the furore that ensues, I go to the bar to order another round of drinks. The new barmaid is serving a customer, so I hang back under the pretence of checking something on my phone. Over the last two weeks, I have casually ascertained that she is Brazilian – a nationality that conjures images like no other – and her name is Christina. Whether or not she is single remains to be discovered. If she is, it won’t be for lack of attention. Long dark hair, tanned skin dusted with freckles, sinfully pneumatic and a smile that says she knows it; Christina would be a wonderful way to spend the long weekend. She hands the change to her customer – who tips her – and I step smartly up to the bar.
‘Boa noite,’ I say, flashing my suavest smile.
The barmaid appears impressed. ‘Você fala português?’
I have a pretty good idea what I’ve just been asked, and, if I’m right, the answer is no. I googled the translation for ‘good evening’ twenty seconds ago, and it is the full extent of my Portuguese.
I shrug apologetically. ‘No, but I’d like to learn. It’s a lovely language.’
I cringe at my obviousness, but Christina, I sense, has developed an immunity to this kind of ham-fisted flirting. ‘Obrigada. So, drinks?’
I reel off the order, and Christina sets about opening bottles and pulling pints.
‘Christina, isn’t it?’ I say.
‘I surprise you remember,’ says Christina, and she doesn’t need the accent to be sexy but it doesn’t do any harm either.
I act offended. ‘Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?’
Christina raises her thick eyebrows as she places a glass of wine in front of me, as if it holds the answer to my question. ‘I’m Tom,’ I say.
Several feet behind me, Holly squeals.
‘Celebrating,’ I tell Christina.
The barmaid nods as if this is self-evident.
‘I produce TV commercials.’
She fetches Rob’s cider.
‘Yeah,’ I go on, ‘just got a big job. Shooting four scripts.’
And Ben’s bitter.
‘For Skittles,’ I say.
Christina rotates Holly’s wine glass. ‘Skittles?’
‘Sweets. Candy.’
Christina shakes her head and turns out her bottom lip in an expression of incomprehension.
‘They’re very English,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll get you some.’
‘Bad for me,’ says Christina, holding her hands against her round hips.
‘Or . . . we could just go for a drink?’
‘More?’ Christina indicates the glasses in front of me.
‘Somewhere else?’ I say, and I can feel my cheeks beginning to warm.
‘Aye ya!’ Christina claps her hands together and then wags her finger left and right. ‘I don’t think your girlfriend likes it.’
‘What girlf— I don’t have a girlfriend.’
Christina raises her eyebrows and I follow her gaze across the bar. Holly looks away; Ben shakes his head.
‘We just work together,’ I say to Christina, and force a laugh. ‘She’s not my girlfriend.’
‘Just good friends,’ says Christina.
‘Exactly.’
She nods at the round of drinks. ‘So is one for myself?’
‘Stick it on the tab,’ I say.
‘Muito obrigada, Tom.’
It takes two trips to carry the drinks back to the table, and when I return to the bar for the second batch, Christina is flirting with a pockmarked customer in a shiny suit. She laughs at some joke and turns to fill a tumbler from the whisky optic. A barman I’ve never seen before – skinny jeans hanging off his flat backside, hair like an indie band guitarist – squeezes past Christina, and his hand trails from left hip to right. They make eye contact, and something unsaid is said.
Back at the table, Ben and Rob and Holly are leaning forwards on their seats, listening to Marlon.
‘. . . and Paul Newman taps her on the shoulder and says, “Madam, it’s in your handbag.”’
Ben and Rob laugh. Holly’s hand goes to her mouth. ‘No.’
Marlon nods. ‘God’s honest. Can you imagine?’
‘Imagine what?’ I say. ‘What was in the handbag?’
‘Ice cream,’ explains Rob.
‘In a handbag?’
Ben sighs. ‘Yes, in a handbag. Would you like me to recap everything you missed?’
‘Not if it’s going to put you out, no. But here’s an idea – next time, you can queue at the bar while I sit on my fat arse waiting for you to bring it to me.’
And just in case Ben doesn’t pick up on the extent of my vexation, I glare at him defiantly.
‘Works for me,’ says Ben smugly. ‘At least I’ll get my drink while it’s still cold.’
‘Cheers,’ says Rob, picking up his cider.
Marlon tilts his pint in my direction.
Holly smiles.
Ben grunts.
We all take a drink.
‘Toilet,’ says Holly, getting up from her stool and squeezing past our various knees.
‘Thanks for squeezing me in on the shoot,’ says Rob.
Ben huffs loudly, stands, pulls on his jacket.
‘Not going to drink your drink I got for you?’ I enquire, not unsarcastically.
‘Had more than enough,’ says Ben. ‘Have a nice weekend, lads,’ he says, looking at Marlon and Rob but not me.
The boys bid him farewell.
‘And say goodbye to Holly for me,’ says Ben, his eyes flicking in my direction.
I catch up with him on the pavement outside. ‘Hoy. What was all that about?’
‘All what?’ says Ben. ‘Nothing, I’m tired.’
‘Sure. Blame it on that again.’
Ben shakes his head dismissively.
‘It must be awful,’ I say. ‘Being so tired you can’t even pretend to enjoy yourself.’
‘It is,’ Ben says. ‘It really is. And here’s the thing, Tom – watching you make a twat of yourself with the barmaid is less enjoyable than you might think.’
‘A twat? And what’s it to you if I chat up the barmaid?’
‘Find ’em, fuck ’em, forget ’em, yeah?’ Ben buddy-punches me on the shoulder. Only there’s not much buddy on it. Fights have started over lesser blows.
‘You know how you sound? You sound jealous, mate.’
Ben laughs dismissively. ‘I’m really not.’
‘How about instead of getting on my case, you get on top of your wife for five minutes?’
If I could take it back, I would. But it’s too late for that and the muscles at the hinges of Ben’s jaw are standing out like gobstoppers.
‘Or maybe I should fuck a script supervisor,’ he says.
‘Been checking up on me?’
‘It’s a small business, Tom. And a smaller office.’
In the absence of a pithy comeback, I huff contempt and shake my head.
Ben takes a deep breath. ‘Look, I’m not trying to be sanctimonious—’
I laugh. ‘Really? Because you’re doing a good fucking job of it.’
‘Okay,’ says Ben. ‘You want to know what pisses me off?’
‘Everything?’
‘What pisses me well and truly off, Tom, is talking to the back of your head while you look around the room for someone else to fuck. It’s boring.’
‘Talk about the pot calling the . . . Do you have any idea how tedious it is listening to you banging on about nappies and milk and sleepless sodding nights? It’s mind-numbing, Ben, it really is.’
‘It’s real life, is what it is. Mate.’
‘Oh please, spare me.’
Ben sighs. ‘Listen, do what you want. Whatever makes you happy.’
‘Thanks for your permission.’
‘But you might want to think about Holly’s feelings.’
‘Jesus! Are we still going on about that? Didn’t I say nothing happened?’
‘Yeah,’ Ben says, ‘you said. Just try a little tact. Don’t rub the poor girl’s face in it.’
‘She’s not a child, Ben.’
‘And you’re not a cunt. So why don’t you stop acting like one?’
With an almost imperceptible shake of his head, Ben turns and walks away.
Chapter Eleven
Every action has a consequence. Every decision leads – inevitably – to an outcome, foreseen or otherwise. Like me, sitting here on a rainy Sunday evening, two days into my solitary bank holiday weekend.
The local cinema has a high balcony with a wonderful view of the local wildlife. Plus, they make good coffee and they serve it in big cups. In front of the cinema is an open square where the indigenous winos and nutters congregate. In summer, the local vagrants sleep on benches, beneath the bushes, or wherever the hell they fall. In the morning, walking to the tube station, you can see them sprawled and passed out on the other side of the iron railings. A human zoo.
An estate agent would call the area ‘vibrant’. Which it is. But so is a lunatic asylum. The postcode has undergone significant regeneration in recent years, and house prices are doing what London house prices do. Even so, some original features remain. The backstreets within a half-mile radius of the tube station are crawling with junkies and dealers, pimps and hookers, touts and hasslers. I have witnessed a filthy, half-naked man hauled screaming into a police car; a woman pushed to the ground and her cash snatched at the hole-in-the-wall; a person on hands and knees in the shadow of a skip behind Nando’s, trousers around calves, injecting God-knows-what into fuck-knows-where. Too much ‘vibrant’ can give you a headache, and maybe it’s time I tried something more soothing.
It’s raining this morning and the scene is less eclectic than usual. But despite the weather, a lone man paces erratic loops beneath the balcony. Phone pressed to his ear, a can and a smoking cigarette in the other hand, he gesticulates expansively as he speaks:
‘You don’t know nuffink. No, you might fink you kn— Shut it! Shut up and get it out of your head, Trace. You don’t know nuffink.’
As theatre goes, it’s a bit too slice-of-life for my taste, but it’s got to be better than anything playing inside the cinema – there is a superhero movie starting in thirty minutes and a romcom in twenty but I’m yet to decide if I’ll watch either.
The guy below the balcony is virtually shouting now.
‘I don’t care what you fink you know when I’m givin it to you, but . . . You. Don’t. Know. Nuffink.’
The guy postures defiantly at passers-by. He inflates himself and juts his head left and right. But not up. He is as oblivious to me as I am tuned in to him. A waitress brings a second hat-sized mug of coffee, but I’m already jittery with caffeine and I only ordered it to occupy my hands.
‘So facking what. Trace? Trace! So what! I don’t give a rat’s fucking fuck what your sister finks because she don’t know nuffink neither.’
Does this guy love Trace? Does Trace love him? Will they kiss and make up this evening? Will he buy her flowers?
Will he fuck.
I’m not saying Ben was entirely right, but he did have a point. I have been insensitive towards Holly. More than that, probably, and I have no defence that doesn’t require further justification. One thing leading to another to another to another. And I am embarrassed for telling Ben his new-dad rants have become tedious. Particularly because it’s true and I’m sure Ben knows it.
And what would my friend think if he knew I was on a mission to sleep with one hundred women? What would my father or my sister think? What would anyone other than El with his neurodegenerative disease think? Not so much of the debauchery as the design. They wouldn’t think much and, if I’m honest with myself, neither do I. After I left the pub on Friday night I went straight home, washed down an over-the-counter sleeping tablet with a pot of primrose tea and was in bed before ten o’clock.
I woke appallingly early and cracking with unwanted energy. By eight a.m., I’d cleaned every square centimetre of the bathroom, rowed twelve thousand metres along the River Nowhere. I showered and gave the bathroom an auxiliary wipe down. I bleached the mugs and cleaned the filters on the washing machine and dishwasher.
While Doug is away tending to Eileen, he’s asked me to tend his herbs, so I popped downstairs to water the basil, mint, parsley and whatever else he’s growing in his window box. He’s a neat old gent, clean-shaven and well turned out, but his kitchen looked like it hadn’t had a thorough clean since his wife passed away. So I wiped down the surfaces, descaled his kettle and cleaned the crumbs and peas and grains of rice from beneath the appliances.
Back in my own flat I was about to iron the curtains when I realised I was teetering on the lip of a steep and slippery slope. Where it led, I wasn’t sure, but I sensed it involved cardigans, corduroy trousers and possibly cats, so I unplugged the iron and grabbed the car keys. My mind came alive with possibilities – I could drive to the coast, paddle in the sea and eat fish and chips out of the paper. Maybe drive to the New Forest, hire a bike and get with nature. Perhaps check into a B’n’B somewhere, talk to strangers, share stories and exchange jokes.
But it turned out that Sadie had put paid to that idea.
I couldn’t be entirely positive, but I was pretty sure the car had been parked in front of the flat the evening before. And if it had been, then when did Sadie drive it away? While I was sipping primrose tea, sleeping, rowing, cleaning the fucking grout between the bathroom tiles? Yes, it’s Sadie’s car too, and she’s as entitled to use it as I am, but is a little communication too much to ask? I mean, where does this stop? Sadie travels the best part of an hour from Islington, maybe she needs to pee, and if she does then what’s to stop her letting herself into my flat to use my toilet? I couldn’t remember Sadie ever returning her keys, but I checked the glass bowl in the hallway nevertheless. No keys. And what if I were in bed with someone? How would that unfold? More than likely not into a threesome.
And one action leads to another.
The locksmith charged me £110 to replace the lock.
But he damaged the paintwork in the process so I took a bus to the DIY superstore and a taxi back along with four litres of Mocha emulsion, four Mountain White, four Tuscan Olive, and a party pack of brushes, rollers and sponges. Good bachelor colours. Sadie convinced me to repaint throughout in various yellows – Florida Sunrise, Lemon Cheesecake, Cold Custard. I didn’t like them then and I should have repainted months ago.
By four thirty on Saturday I’d finished the bedroom and worked up a righteous thirst, so I picked up my new keys and popped out to the off-licence.
The off-licence is next door to an estate agent. They’re coming to photograph the flat on Tuesday morning.
All the walls are now painted and I have blisters from holding a brush. I’d flake out on the sofa but the flat is thick with paint fumes and they were giving me a headache. So here I am, sipping a giant cup of coffee on the balcony of the cinema on a bank holiday Sunday.
‘Trace,’ says the pacing, gesticulating, bullying bastard beneath the balcony. ‘Get it into your head, Trace. You know nuffink, and you are nuffink.’
And you think about the things you might do, could do, shouldn’t have said and should have done.
I could tip my coffee on this idiot’s head without rising from my seat.
So that’s exactly what I do.
Have a nice facking day.
The romcom wasn’t bad at all. I laughed in most of the right places and, if I’d allowed myself, I’m sure I could have shed a tear at the final act. Takeaway Indian for supper, another pot of primrose tea, another early night. And on bank holiday Monday, another day with paint in my hair – this time white gloss from repainting the architraves, skirting boards and dado rails. I was hoping the woodwork would take up
the whole day, but it’s a small flat and I’m all done by lunchtime. Which is probably just as well: the flat smells like a chemical spill and I’m beginning to hallucinate that the walls are closing in on me. Even an angry text from Bianca or a fretful message from Dad would be a welcome distraction but, thanks to me, they seem to be living in a bubble of rare harmony. That’ll teach me to go interfering.
Doug isn’t due back until tomorrow morning, so I gather my cleaning products and head downstairs to water his herbs and give the place a good spring clean.
‘Wakey wakey, lad.’
‘Doug?’
‘Were y’expectin someone else?’
I remember sitting down in Doug’s armchair, but surely that was only five minutes ago. The plan was to take a quick breather after cleaning the bathroom, then run the vacuum over the carpets. The sun has set and my neck is stiff.
‘Is it Tuesday already?’
‘Not quite. Ten to, in fact.’
‘What are you doing back here?’
‘Might ask you the same thing, lad, but I reckon I can make a pretty good guess,’ he says, nodding at my yellow Marigolds.
‘Right, sorry. Hope you don’t mind – I was . . . Well, to tell the truth, Doug, I didn’t have anything better to do.’
‘Aye, well, thank you. It was good of ye all the same. It’s been a while since this place has had a woman’s touch.’
‘Bit like myself,’ I say. ‘And by the way, that’s sexist.’
Doug shakes his head. ‘What’s not? Honestly, I dinnae ken the world anymore. Was a time when you could hold a door for a lady and she’d say thank you.’
