Life and Soul of the Party

by Mike Gayle

  ‘Still, getting a house of your own isn’t the be all and end all, is it?’

  Chris laughed. ‘I think you’re making Mel feel bad about the fact that she’s wasting valuable time playing at being a student again rather than getting on the property ladder.’

  I punched Chris in the shoulder as hard as I could. ‘It’s unbelievable how much of a tosser you can be sometimes.’

  Cooper grinned. ‘Just ignore him, he’s not worth the effort.’ He looked at me sheepishly. ‘I suppose you’re right: getting a house isn’t the be all and end all but it’s a step forward, isn’t it? And that’s all I want really – a couple of steps forward.’

  There was something about the look on Cooper’s face, like a child desperately trying to hide a secret that made me curious.

  ‘What other “steps forward” are you thinking about?’

  Cooper just smiled enigmatically.

  ‘You’re not . . . ?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Going to ask Laura to marry you, are you?’

  ‘Yeah, right. Do I look like a mug?’

  ‘What do you mean? I think you and Laura make a brilliant couple. Plus, it’s been ages since I’ve been to a good wedding. You should do it.’

  Cooper rolled his eyes. ‘Well, much as I’d like to help you out by throwing a good party, Mel, I’m afraid that won’t be happening anytime soon. But I’ll be sure to let you know if I change my mind, okay?’

  I looked at Chris in the hope that he might back me up but he just shrugged and offered me the champagne again. I glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was twenty minutes past ten and there was still no sign of Paul and Hannah.

  ‘So where’s his Lordship then?’ I asked, directing the question at both Chris and Cooper. ‘He is still coming, isn’t he?’

  Chris shrugged. ‘That’s what he told me but you know what he’s like, your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘Maybe Hannah didn’t fancy the idea of spending the biggest night of the year with a bunch of her boyfriend’s friends who don’t really like her,’ suggested Cooper. ‘I don’t think I’d be here if I was her. After all, she’s not you, is she?’

  It was all I could do to stop myself from throwing my arms around Coop and kissing him. ‘Thanks for the solidarity. Coop, but she’s Paul’s girlfriend so we should be nice to her. He’s always been nice to the guys I’ve seen in the past.’

  ‘Maybe to your face,’ said Chris solemnly.

  ‘Why, what has he said?’

  Chris shook his head. ‘Look, I’m saying nothing. But take it from me, he’s never been anywhere near as happy as he makes out when you’re seeing someone.’

  Although this was news to me it didn’t exactly make me feel any better.

  ‘Doesn’t matter anyway,’ I replied. ‘The truth is I like her, and I can definitely see what Paul sees in her.’

  Cooper laughed. ‘Well, that’s hardly rocket science, she’s very easy on the eye.’

  ‘I mean beyond all that superficial stuff,’ I replied. ‘I was talking to her the last time she was round at Chris and Vicky’s and she was telling me about some of the stuff she’s doing on her MA. I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about – it was like she was talking in a different language. She’s so clever it’s frightening.’

  Chris put an arm round my shoulder as though he was drawing me close in order to impart an important piece of wisdom which of course he was, because one of the downsides of being Chris and Cooper’s ‘little sister’ was that every once in a while I had to endure their unsolicited advice about my private life.

  ‘Considering what a Hannah-fan you are,’ observed Chris, ‘I bet you’d have a face on you that could turn milk if she walked in with Paul right now.’

  I pretended to look for the champagne but could feel myself starting to flush.

  ‘Listen, Mel,’ he continued. ‘I know this might sound a bit harsh and for the life of me I don’t mean it that way but seeing as we’re about to begin a new year, why don’t you do yourself a massive favour and just move on? Hanging on to Paul like this is doing you no good at all.’

  Even though Chris wasn’t being all that serious I could feel tears pricking at the back of my eyes before he had even finished.

  ‘If it was that easy,’ I replied, ‘don’t you think that I’d have done it by now?’

  ‘Of course you can do it,’ replied Chris, oblivious to the look of disbelief emanating from Cooper’s face. ‘You just have to want it badly enough, that’s all. Look, all I’m saying is that you and Paul are mates and that’s great but I think that now he’s finally moved on, maybe you should too.’

  Chris

  I have no idea who’d died and made me Minister of Home Truths but whoever it was I wish they hadn’t bothered. Melissa looked crushed when I finished delivering my big piece of advice and all I could think was: ‘Why didn’t I keep my big mouth shut?’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said after a long silence. ‘Maybe I am wasting my time here with Paul. Maybe I should just go home right now.’

  I could tell that Melissa was absolutely serious about leaving and could already picture the scene Vicky would make when she found out it was my fault that her best friend was spending New Year’s Eve on her own.

  ‘You can’t go, Mel. First off it’s just wrong, second, you shouldn’t listen to anything I’ve got to say about anything, because what do I know? And finally, if you go home early and Vicky finds out that you’ve gone because of me she will go insane.’

  ‘She would, wouldn’t she?’ said Melissa, the beginnings of a smile on her face. ‘She’d make your life a misery for days.’

  ‘Days? Try weeks.’

  Melissa sighed. ‘Look, Chris, I know you meant well and that you’re probably right about me and Paul, it’s just . . . you know . . . some things are easier said than done, aren’t they? You can’t really think I want to be like this, can you? You can’t really think that I enjoy waking up on my own only to end the day in bed alone too. You have no idea how lucky you are having Vicky and William. No idea at all.’

  ‘I really am sorry, mate. I haven’t a clue about anything. You just do what you’ve got to do and from now on I’ll keep my mouth shut.’

  ‘Okay, you’re forgiven. But if you start with any of that “Melissa’s a flaky Southern layabout stuff” again I will grass you up in a second.’ She picked up her plastic cup of wine. ‘Right, boys, I’m off to find some proper people to talk to, okay?’

  ‘No hard feelings, mate?’

  Melissa smiled. ‘Of course not. We’re fine. I’ll see you later?’

  ‘Yeah. Later.’

  I watched Melissa leave the kitchen then turned to Cooper and sighed. ‘I really should learn to keep my big mouth shut, shouldn’t I? It’s not like it takes a genius to work out that Melissa doesn’t want to hear the truth about her and Paul.’

  ‘And certainly not tonight of all nights,’ added Cooper. ‘New Year’s Eve always puts people in a weird frame of mind.’

  I raised an eyebrow, relieved at the opportunity to talk about something else. ‘Like you? What was all that stuff going on with your face when Mel was talking about you and Laura getting hitched? For a second I thought that you might be—’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You are what?’

  ‘Going to ask her. Not tonight. But this New Year, definitely.’

  ‘You’re joking?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I’m absolutely serious. I was thinking of asking her on her birthday in April. That way it’ll give me enough time to save up for the ring without raiding our savings.’

  ‘You do know you can’t just get any old rubbish for an engagement ring and hope that she’ll be so flattered that she won’t notice it’s gold plated?’

  Cooper grinned. ‘That’s why I’m planning to give it to her over a candle-lit dinner.’

  I shook my head and picked up the bottle of champagne. ‘Well, best of luck to you, bruv. I hope it
all goes well when you do the deed.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Cooper took the bottle from me. He took a swig and winced. ‘Nope,’ he said resignedly, ‘still can’t stand this stuff.’

  Melissa

  Determined to think about something other than Paul, I ended up circulating the party on my own for about an hour, dipping in and out of conversations. Most of the people I spoke to were friends that I’d first met in pubs and clubs during my early twenties and now, a decade on, only met up with at the occasional party or summer barbecue. Of course most of them were settled now, coupled up with kids or tethered down by massive mortgages, but there was a small yet resilient battalion still fighting the good fight as though the last ten years hadn’t happened. It was these friends in particular that I was always pleased to see. It was great to hear that people like Cathy and Brendan were still in bands, that Dean and Lewis were still actively pursuing their dream of becoming full-time artists and even that Alistair and Baxter were still running the same city-centre indie club nights that they had been involved with when I’d first got to know them as a nineteen-year-old student. It felt good seeing all these people in one place at the same time. It felt good knowing that they were all getting on with their lives. It made me feel as though I was part of something larger than myself.

  In the middle of a conversation with Carl and Louisa, whose big news was that Louisa was pregnant, I decided that I needed another drink to keep me going. I made my excuses and tried to make my way out of the room but every few steps someone I hadn’t seen in ages emerged from the wings with an air kiss and a desperate need to catch up. Manjeet and Aaron were moving down to London, Joel and Rowena had just bought a house over in Withington and Tina (formerly of Tina and Alan and currently of Tina and Susan) had left teaching and was now trying to write a novel. Beginning to feel as if I was coming down with a massive case of information overload, I managed with a struggle to reach the door to the hallway but before I could make it out of the room I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned round. Standing in front of me was a tall young-looking guy wearing a pinstriped jacket with a green T-shirt that had yellow writing on it. I didn’t recognise him but the way he was looking at me – as though we were old friends – convinced me that I must have met him at some long-forgotten party. I was about to kiss him on the cheek and ask how he was doing before politely making my excuses and escaping to the kitchen, when he did something really odd. Raising his foot in the air so that I could see that he was wearing brick-red baseball boots just like my own he said: ‘Snap.’

  Billy

  It had taken me over two hours, three cans of Carlsberg, and all the courage I possessed in order to approach the girl in the red Converse.

  I’d spotted her the moment she entered the living room some time after nine. I’d been bored out of my mind making small talk with my sister’s mates when boom, there she was. She seemed different from the other women at the party. Prettier. More thoughtful. Older than me but without making me feel like it would require a huge leap of the imagination to picture us being together. That, along with the style of her hair, the cardigan she was wearing, her frayed jeans and the fact that she seemed the total opposite of Freya made me think that if I was going to pull at this party then this girl would be it.

  Normally I would never have dreamed of trying to chat up a girl like that in a million years especially with a line that boiled down to little more than: ‘Wow, look at us, we’ve got the same footwear.’ And what made it worse of course was the fact that it was so obviously just a cheesy chat-up line. I might have been better off just saying: ‘Do you think that at some point this evening you might be drunk enough to consider getting off with a complete stranger?’ At least then I might have gained a few points for sheer brazenness.

  Still, since the girl in the Converse was unknown to my sister and her immediate friends (I’d already checked out that avenue), if I was ever going to have a hope of talking to her I had no choice but to try something on my own. Looking over at the three remaining cans of Carlsberg I’d brought with me and placed on the mantle, I decided that if Dutch courage was what I needed, then I’d have to settle for Danish courage as that was all I had to hand. I pulled one can out of its plastic carrier, opened it and began drinking, giving myself an eleven o’clock deadline to make my move.

  Melissa

  You can imagine how weird this was. There I was trying to escape the room when this guy just appears from nowhere, taps me on the shoulder and, dangling his foot in front of me, says: ‘Snap.’

  I was confused to say the least.

  I decided to humour him. ‘Great minds, eh?’

  ‘I was thinking the same thing.’

  With nothing springing to mind that might help me recognise this guy, I played for time and gestured to his chest with my empty plastic cup. ‘What does your T-shirt say?’

  He pulled his jacket open so I could read the words of his T-shirt – a cryptic fake film review that said: An athlete, a criminal, a brain, a princess and a basketcase bond in detention at a Chicago High School (1985).

  ‘The Breakfast Club,’ I said grinning. ‘I love that film.’

  ‘Me too,’ he replied. ‘What’s your favourite bit?’

  ‘Though I love it I can barely remember it – I haven’t seen it in ages. How about you?’

  ‘The bit when they’re all dancing . . . and pretty much any scene with Ally Sheedy in it.’

  I smiled. ‘So you’re a Sheedy man?’

  ‘All the way.’

  I remembered how at school you could always divide boys into the ones who considered themselves to be tortured poets (and therefore fancied Ally Sheedy) and the boys who were just boys (and therefore fancied Molly Ringwald). I had to smile at the thought that this guy fancied himself as a tortured poet.

  ‘This is really awful of me,’ I said after a few moments, ‘but I seem to have completely forgotten your name.’

  ‘That’s because we’ve never met before,’ he said looking slightly uncomfortable. ‘Can I be straight with you? I only came over because . . . well . . . you seemed nice and it’s New Year’s Eve . . . and we’ll all be singing Auld Lang Syne in a bit . . . so I just thought I’d come over and say hello.’ He offered me his hand and I think he was about to tell his name but then he stopped and looked over my shoulder. I turned round too to see what he was looking at and there, standing right behind me, all alone, was Paul.

  Billy

  Even without knowing anything about either of them I could tell straight away that these two had history. The second Melissa saw Paul her whole being lit up like a switch inside her had been flipped. Seeing them together like that made me think how Freya was the only person I could think of who could make me feel the way this girl was feeling.

  ‘We all thought you weren’t coming,’ said Melissa.

  ‘I’m just a bit late, that’s all,’ he replied.

  Melissa bit her lip. ‘Where’s Hannah? Getting a drink?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, she . . . er . . . she couldn’t make it.’

  Melissa looked concerned. ‘Nothing wrong, is there?’

  ‘No, nothing’s wrong,’ replied Paul. ‘She’s fine.’ He paused. ‘So what have I missed?’

  Melissa smiled. ‘Nothing much really, Laura wants to go travelling and Cooper wants to save up for a deposit for a house and it’s all going to end in disaster; and Chris and Vicky are, well, you know . . . Chris and Vicky and I . . . I . . .’

  I could tell that Melissa had just recalled the fact that prior to Paul’s arrival she had been in the middle of a conversation with me and now I was dangling, like some kind of spare part, wishing one of them would put me out of my misery.

  Melissa looked at me apologetically.

  ‘Paul, this is . . .’

  ‘Billy,’ I replied. ‘My name’s Billy.’

  ‘That’s it. Billy,’ said Melissa. ‘This is Billy. And Billy, this is Paul. He and I are old friends.’

  ‘Very old frie
nds,’ added Paul. ‘How long has it been? Ten or eleven years?’

  ‘Twelve,’ replied Melissa. ‘Twelve long years.’

  Melissa

  Half past midnight. Thirty minutes into a brand-new year. And Paul and I, having shouted, cheered and done the Auld Lang Syne thing with everyone else at midnight, were outside in Ed and Sharon’s back garden sitting on their damp patio furniture with a freshly purloined bottle of wine watching an explosion of fireworks in the night sky. I could feel the damp of the table soaking right through my jeans to my underwear but I didn’t care. There was something different about Paul tonight. I could sense it.

  ‘Genius idea of yours,’ I said as yet another firework popped and sparkled in the sky. ‘Leave the comfort of a nice warm house and sit outside in the rain.’

  Paul shrugged. ‘You could’ve said no.’

  ‘And miss out on all this? Never.’

  Paul took a sip of wine and handed the bottle to me. I put it to my lips, took a long, deep gulp and swallowed. It felt good to drink wine like this. An instant reminder of the days when finer graces genuinely didn’t matter.

  ‘I haven’t drunk straight from the bottle like this since the year we all went to Glastonbury. And for some reason I’ve done it twice tonight.’

  Paul smiled. ‘I remember that year at Glastonbury. That was the year we bought those bottles of home-made wine from that hippie guy near the main stage and Cooper refused to drink it in case it was laced with weed killer. Do you remember? Like a hippie hasn’t got better things to do with his time than poison a bunch of middle-class layabouts.’

  ‘I remember the hippie . . . and I sort of remember handing him the cash but other than pushing the corks into the bottle with my keys, I don’t remember much about that night at all.’ I paused and laughed. ‘Still, somehow I just get a sense that it might have been one of the best nights of my life.’

  ‘Easily up there in the top ten.’

  I glanced at Paul. He looked thoughtful and pensive.

  ‘So are you going to tell me what’s going on?’