Life and Soul of the Party

by Mike Gayle

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Well, where’s Hannah for starters?’

  ‘I’m guessing she’s at home. I don’t know for sure. We split up just before Christmas.’

  There it was. Paul and Hannah had split up. They were over. It didn’t seem to make any sense given how happy they had been last time I had seen them together, all loved up and fawning over each other.

  ‘How did she take it?’ I asked carefully.

  ‘How do you know it was me?’

  ‘Come on, Paul,’ I laughed. ‘This is me you’re talking to.’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ he said obliquely. ‘It wasn’t like I was the love of her life.’

  ‘And you’d know that how exactly?’

  ‘You think I was?’

  I shook my head. ‘I doubt you’ll ever be the love of anyone’s life. It would be tantamount to making a public admission that you didn’t have much of a life to begin with. I have to admit I’m surprised though. I actually would’ve put money on you and Hannah going the distance.’

  ‘Even though she’s so young?’

  ‘She’s twenty-three. That’s not so young.’

  ‘Do you think?’

  I sighed. ‘It looks like it was more your problem than hers.’

  Paul pulled at the label on the wine, eventually tearing off a small strip. ‘I wasn’t right for her. And I think she knew it.’

  ‘Ah, so it was Hannah’s fault you split up? You were doing her dirty work for her? Come on, surely not even you believe that?’

  Paul didn’t reply and I didn’t say anything to ease the tension because I was thinking about Hannah and how I knew exactly how she would be feeling and what would be going through her mind.

  We sat in silence. Paul proceeded to tap his left foot in time to some imaginary soundtrack in his head which made me want to sit as still as I could just to be awkward. It was only when Ed and Sharon’s back door opened spilling light and music into the garden that we both jolted back to life but then relaxed when we saw that it was Vicky.

  ‘Everything okay?’ she called out.

  ‘Yeah, we’re all good,’ replied Paul.

  ‘I’m just letting you know that Chris and I will probably be getting off soon.’

  ‘We’ll be in soon,’ I replied. ‘Don’t go without saying goodbye, okay?’

  Vicky closed the door, plunging us both back into the darkness and silence. Paul coughed and then looked at me. ‘Do you know Chris and Vicky will have been married ten years this coming year? A kid. A proper home. A proper life. All in ten years.’

  I nodded, wondering where he was going with this train of thought.

  ‘I suppose it’s just got me thinking,’ he continued, ‘You know – about wasted time.’

  I put on a rubbish American accent in the hope of lightening the mood: ‘You’re preaching to the choir.’

  I went to take another swig of wine but misjudged the manoeuvre, missed my mouth altogether and spilled some down my chin. I wiped my face with the sleeve of my cardigan and looked over at Paul to see that he was watching me with a look in his eyes that I couldn’t quite work out.

  ‘Have I still got wine on my face?’

  Paul shook his head.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

  ‘Try me.’

  He stood up, turned to face me and held my hands. ‘You think you don’t want what other people want,’ he began. ‘You think that all you want is to be alone. But it’s not true. The day will come when you’ll be so sick of being alone that you won’t know what to do. And when it happens come and find me and we’ll pick up right where we left off.’

  I pulled my hands away from him. ‘Do you think that’s funny?’ I barked. ‘Is that what I am? Just some kind of pathetic joke?’

  ‘Of course not, Mel,’ he said urgently. ‘If you would just listen for a second I’m trying to tell you that you were right.’ He grabbed my hands again. ‘You asked me earlier why I’d split up with Hannah and here’s your answer: I split up with Hannah because of you. I did feel for Hannah. It’s true. I liked her a lot. But the thing I couldn’t escape was that she wasn’t you.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I replied. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying at all.’

  ‘Well understand this,’ he said, kissing me as a firework roared up into the sky and filled the air with a rainbow of tiny stars. ‘Understand that right here and now I’m asking you to pick up where we left off.’

  One Month Later

  Charlotte and

  Cameron’s House-Warming Party

  January 2006

  Melissa

  It was just after five on the last Saturday in January and I was standing at the bus stop outside the university library. It had been raining solidly all day and now that it was dark the streets seemed deserted. As a sudden gust of wind blew a sheet of rain against the shelter I huddled myself further into the corner for protection, closed my eyes and wished that I was somewhere else.

  My day so far had already proved nothing more than an utter waste of time. I’d been given an essay title before Christmas, three thousand words on: The Meaning of the Metaphysical in Seventeenth-Century Art. Given that I frequently found it difficult to understand a single word that my lecturer said past the point that she opened her mouth to say good morning, I’d relegated the essay to the lower reaches of my To Do list in the hope that, if left long enough, it might somehow write itself. I ignored it for so long in fact that I forgot about it completely until the Friday morning when my lecturer reminded us that it was due in first thing Monday morning. With two shifts of my part-time job at Blue-Bar to complete and Charlotte and Cameron’s house-warming party to focus on, I’d begun to wonder when exactly I was going to find the time to breathe, let alone write an essay. Determined to get as much of it done as possible before time ran out altogether, I’d optimistically set my alarm for six in the morning in the hope of getting a head start on the day. What I failed to take into consideration was how quickly six o’clock in the morning came round when, following an evening of drinking and talking, you only allow yourself to give in to sleep at two.

  The moment my clock radio lurched into life, dragging me from the deepest of deep sleeps to a confused state of consciousness, was one I’d rather forget. Everything hurt. My ears, my brain, my limbs. And I wanted it to stop. So pushing my bedside table away from the wall, I’d reached down to the socket and in one swift movement yanked the plug out. Taking a few moments to savour the merciful silence, I rolled over on to my side, sleepily kissed Paul’s ear, and allowed myself to fall gently back to sleep.

  The next sound that I heard was the front door slamming shut as Creepy Susie left to go to work at the bank. Turning to face my clock radio I was horrified to see that the digital display was completely blank. That was when it all came back to me. I reached for my watch, hoping that it might be eight, or even nine at the very latest and was horrified to see that it was nearly midday. In that instant my entire future life flashed before my eyes: the essay wouldn’t get done, I would fail my course and be doomed to work at Blue-Bar forever.

  Cursing my decision to re-enter higher education as a so-called ‘mature’ student, I’d flung myself into the shower, grabbed some clean underwear, recycled the clothes that I’d been wearing the night before and, grabbing a piece of toast and a bottle of water, left Paul unconscious underneath my duvet.

  By the time I reached the university library, not only were all the tables in the Art History department taken by my fellow last-minute-essay-writing course members but, of the sixteen text books on the reading list, only one was still on the reference shelves. And I strongly suspected that the only reason for this was because some juvenile joker had deftly sketched a penis in marker pen on the front cover that featured a reproduction of a Rubens’ portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria.

  I spent most of the afternoon in the library during which ti
me I managed to sketch out a rough essay plan and make ten pages of notes. By the time I decided to call it a day I was completely demoralised by both the concept of education and what I perceived to be a distinct inability to carry out my life as a fully formed adult.

  As I left the library and walked out into the dark and the rain the only thing that kept me going was the fact that in a short while I’d forget all about the rain and the cold, my unwritten essay and my shifts at Blue-Bar. I tried to concentrate on the simple images of happiness: kicking off my shoes and climbing into bed; reading the weekend’s newspaper from cover to cover and falling asleep; but the thought that gave me the warmest glow was seeing Paul again.

  Of course I’d had my shaky moments since we’d got back together but as far as I was concerned the past weeks had been nothing short of perfect. The best start to a new year I’d ever had. After Ed and Sharon’s party, Paul and I had walked back to his place hand-in-hand, neither one of us able to believe that after all this time apart – five whole years – we were finally back together again. And though I had a thousand and one questions in my head about where things were going, I didn’t ask a single one. I shouted down every last shred of fear and doubt, determined to act first and ask questions later. Yes, things were complicated. But that didn’t seem to matter any more.

  When I woke up on New Year’s Day lying in Paul’s arms I told myself that even if it all ended in the next few seconds, to have experienced that single morning moment, to have felt the delight of knowing the thing you hope for most in life could come true, all of it would have been worth the pain that would inevitably follow.

  And it was inevitable.

  All the evidence said so. Paul had only just split up with Hannah and I was obviously part of the rebound. The stuff about wanting what Chris and Vicky had got smacked too much of Paul’s binary logic: one second everything is off then he flicks a switch in his head and turns everything back on again. How was I supposed to follow a line of thinking that was more dependent on individual gut reaction than rational thought? Before Paul had even woken up I’d convinced myself that this would all seem like a monumental mistake to him.

  I got up and dressed without waking him and was almost at his front gate when I heard him call my name. I tried to explain that I didn’t blame him for what had happened but I just couldn’t seem to get the words out. And that was the moment that Paul chose to tell me that he loved me for the very first time since we split up. I was torn. When you love someone as much as I loved Paul, you have a constant battle between the sane self-preserving you who is outraged at having been treated so badly and the vulnerable besotted you who wants to fall right back in love and jump into the past with both feet. This besotted you wins out eventually because it just feels so good, so sweet to let it.

  But at the same time as I felt this love, rather than being happy I was angry and hurt. I told him that his words were ‘just words’ and I reminded him of the fact that he had broken my heart, of the fact that there had been times when I thought I would never recover from what he did to me. I reminded him of the fact that in the five years we were apart I’d never moved on from him, preferring to wait patiently for him like (Vicky’s words sprung to mind) ‘some sort of lap dog’ when I should have found some self-respect and moved on. And finally I told him that I was angry and I was hurt and that I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to forgive him for what he’d done.

  There was a long silence. And as I stood there looking at Paul, wondering which way things were going to go, I realised that I just wasn’t angry any more.

  Hannah

  It was early evening and I was sitting in my tiny flat in Prestwich. For the fifth time in the last hour I reached inside my bag, took out my Nokia, scrolled through the address book until I got to Paul’s number and paused with my thumb hovering above the call button. At the last moment my nerve failed me. I put my phone down on the coffee table in front of me, closed my eyes and thought about Paul.

  Paul and I first met at the party my cousin Sophie threw for her husband Stephen’s fortieth birthday. As a surprise Sophie had hired one of the screens at the Cornerhouse for the evening and invited forty of Stephen’s friends and family to watch his favourite film. Reservoir Dogs. Just to make sure that everyone got into the spirit of the evening, the invitation had stated in embossed scarlet print that the dress code was: Black suit, white shirt, black tie and sunglasses (hand gun: optional).

  It had been a real spectacle arriving at the venue to see all of Stephen’s friends queued up in the rain outside the cinema as if they were waiting to get into a convention for contract killers. Everyone who had been invited to the party really made an effort to look the part. Apart from one: Paul. On the morning of the party he had forgotten to take his suit with him into work and would’ve ended up missing the film altogether if he’d gone back home and so, dressed in T-shirt and jeans, he’d stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.

  After the screening I’d been milling around on my own when Stephen called me over and introduced us. Paul and I initially made polite small talk during which I learned his name and the fact that he and Stephen knew each through working for the city’s social services’ vulnerable adult team but then Stephen, having already drunk far too much, entered into a massive monologue about the perils of turning forty. Before he could get into full flow he was interrupted by Sophie demanding that he circulate, so Paul and I were left on our own.

  We remained together for the rest of the night. Although we were enjoying each other’s company I remember wondering whether this was simply because, like him, I was one of the few single people at the party and we’d realised that the evening was going to be a lot less stressful if we worked as a team. However, when a pretty red-haired woman who was clearly very pleased to see Paul came over to say hello, and I offered him the opportunity to go his own way, he dismissed her with a subtle but ruthless efficiency that made me think perhaps we were thinking on the same wavelength.

  At the end of the evening Paul asked me if I was interested in sharing a taxi home even though Chorlton and Prestwich weren’t exactly in the same direction. Although I didn’t want our evening together to end, a voice inside me told me to take things slowly and so I explained that I had to be up early in the morning for work. He nodded and suggested that we go out some time but rather than just leaving it at that he actually got out his work diary and suggested some dates on the spot.

  We met up again on the Tuesday of the following week. He took me to the opening of a new show at a city art gallery that one of his friends was involved in and we spent all night talking and making jokes, barely looking at any of the paintings. At one point during the night he asked me point blank how old I was and for a second I considered lying because even though age wasn’t an issue for me – my last boyfriend had been a good deal older than me – it made me think that perhaps it was an issue for Paul. In the end I told him straight out that I was twenty-three and then he asked me if I knew how old he was and I told him that I’d guessed from some of the things that he’d said that he was in his mid-thirties. I asked if my age was going to be a problem (which was odd considering that we hadn’t even kissed) and he said no, it was for my benefit, not his. When I asked him to explain he just said, ‘It’s just that the older you get the more baggage you collect and I’ve got more than my fair share.’ I would’ve asked him more but then his friend who was involved in the show came over and the moment was lost.

  The following weekend we went to a Spanish restaurant on Deansgate for lunchtime tapas and we had the best time ever. All we did was talk and talk like there was no tomorrow. In fact we talked so much that it was early evening by the time we left and as we stood watching the traffic pass by it felt completely natural to kiss him – as if we had known each other for years rather than days. As we walked back along Deansgate hand-in-hand pausing only to indulge in our mutual compulsion to kiss I remember saying to myself, in a way that I’m ashamed to admit, given how I�
��d promised that I would take things slowly, ‘I think this is it. I really think I might fall in love with you.’

  After a beginning as sweet and romantic as ours I think I can be forgiven for being taken by surprise by the way things ended. I hadn’t seen it coming at all. Why would I? We’d been together nearly nine months, I’d thought things were going fine and we were supposed to be going to his work’s Christmas party.

  My flatmates had gone out for the night and I was waiting for Paul to pick me up when he called my mobile. I thought he was calling to say he was on his way or stuck in traffic, never guessing for a second that something was wrong. Before he could say a word I started asking about the party and who was going to be there and what time he thought we would leave, but he just cut me dead and said: ‘I think we should stop seeing each other.’

  Since then, I’d seen Paul only once, and that was to get some things of mine that I’d left at his house – amongst them a silver necklace that my mother had bought me for my twenty-first-birthday. I’d planned to leave my request on his home answerphone when I knew he’d be at work and was completely thrown when after three rings or so my call was answered by Melissa.

  Paul and I had rowed about his friendship with Melissa on several occasions when we were together. It wasn’t just that she was his ex-girlfriend that bothered me or that she was his age, or even that they were so close. What really bothered me was the fact that even though it had been nearly five years since they had split up, she was obviously still in love with Paul. What was worse was that Paul knew it too. Though he never said anything directly about his feelings towards her I could just tell that he felt some sort of obligation towards her that was completely non-negotiable. So why did I put up with it? Why didn’t I just walk away? I don’t know. I really wish I knew for sure. But if I had to hazard a guess it would come down to this: I loved Paul and the thought of losing him because of his friendship with Melissa genuinely terrified me.