Life and Soul of the Party

by Mike Gayle

  The call never came.

  Chris

  Since Paul’s death I had spoken to Hannah only a handful of times, mainly about arrangements for the funeral. Each conversation had been awkward and stilted and brought me to the edge of tears. I just didn’t know Hannah well enough to know what to say to her. She was going to be the mother of my best friend’s child yet despite all we had in common, we were virtually strangers.

  When she had been just another one of Paul’s post-Melissa ‘inappropriate’ girlfriends it had been easy not to bother with her as I’d never expected to see her beyond a few weeks. And by the time those weeks had turned into months I’d already made up my mind that I wasn’t all that keen on her. Beyond the fact that she was pretty and was obviously quite smart I couldn’t quite understand why Paul was so taken with her. She was too young to take seriously and I’d pointed this out to him during a drunken conversation late one night as we had walked home together from Blue-Bar about a month before they split up. Paul’s response had been to laugh and call me a tosser but later, as we stood outside Panicos on Barlow Moor Road, about to go our separate ways he told me why he thought Hannah was so special. ‘It’s because she sees through me,’ he said. ‘She can tell what I’m thinking before I’ve even had the thought. I’m totally transparent. And I’ve already messed things up too badly to be with the only person who knows me better than that.’ A few weeks later it was New Year’s Eve. Hannah was out. Melissa was back in. And I felt my lack of effort with Hannah had been justified – a decision I now regretted.

  ‘How long until Hannah’s baby’s due?’ asked Naomi as people began to file into the church.

  ‘The second week in September,’ replied Vicky. ‘Which with a first baby means it could arrive any time from right this very second through to the beginning of October.’

  Naomi shook her head in disbelief. ‘What a horrible thing to have happened. My heart goes out to her, it really does.’

  ‘It’s the biggest shame in the world,’ said Cooper putting his arm round Naomi. ‘Paul would’ve made an amazing father. After all he was just a big kid himself.’

  I nodded and looked at the crowd heading for the entrance to the church. ‘I think it’s time.’

  We began walking towards the church, but Melissa hung back and when Vicky noticed she called out to her.

  ‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’

  ‘You guys carry on,’ replied Melissa quietly. ‘I think I’m going to sit this one out.’

  ‘Please come.’ Vicky put an arm round her. ‘We’ll get through this together.’

  Melissa shook her head. ‘I’m not going, Vick. Please don’t make this into a big deal. I just want to be left alone.’

  ‘Then I’m staying with you,’ said Vicky firmly.

  ‘But I don’t want you to.’ Melissa started to get upset. ‘I just want to be on my own. Why can’t anyone understand that?’

  ‘Look,’ I whispered in Vicky’s ear, ‘why don’t you guys go inside and I’ll stay here with Mel for a bit. If you stay she’ll feel like she has to talk. If I stay she knows she won’t have to say a word.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. I’ll see you inside in a minute.’

  Vicky gave Melissa a huge squeeze, exchanged a troubled glance with me and joined the others.

  ‘You ought to go in,’ said Melissa quietly. ‘I just don’t want to be in there with all those people.’

  I looked at her and smiled. ‘Do you want a fag?’

  Melissa

  I was confused. Ever since Chris and Vicky had discovered that they were going to be parents again Chris had vowed to give up smoking for good.

  ‘You haven’t started again, have you?’

  ‘I haven’t got any, mate, I just wanted to know if you wanted one.’

  ‘Do you know how cruel it is to tease an ex-smoker like that?’

  ‘Of course I do. That’s why I did it.’ Chris shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets. ‘Should we go for a walk?’

  ‘We can’t.’ I looked over at the queue of people filing into the church. ‘You’re supposed to be the one representing us all in there.’

  Chris looked at his watch. ‘It doesn’t start ‘til eleven and it’s twenty-five to now. That gives us plenty of time for a walk around the block.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this, you know.’

  ‘Too late. I’m already doing it.’

  Chris led me across the tarmacked car park to the road outside the church and turned left towards a busy-looking main road. As we passed by a set of traffic lights in our funeral attire I could see that all the drivers of the various stationary cars were watching us with moderately detached interest.

  ‘I think we’re causing quite a stir,’ said Chris. ‘Random funeral goers heading in the wrong direction.’

  ‘I can’t say I care what anyone thinks at the moment.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you do.’

  We spotted the entrance to a park and Chris led me past the chipped cast-iron gates, along a narrow path with holly bushes growing on either side that eventually led to an open field.

  ‘Shall we sit over there?’ He pointed to a bench opposite a graffiti-covered fountain.

  I nodded and we walked over to it and sat down. We were sharing the park with a man walking a grey terrier, a woman pushing a pram and three teenagers kicking a football. Chris turned round so that he was facing me head on. ‘Everyone knows how tough this is for you, Mel.’

  I shook my head. ‘No they don’t, Chris. Believe me when I say they really don’t.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ asked Chris.

  ‘Because no one knows I slept with him, Chris. No one knows that I slept with Paul on the night of Laura’s party.’

  Vicky

  I felt as though my head was about to explode.

  There wasn’t a spare seat in the entire church. It was standing room only. I felt that everyone in the room was eyeing me suspiciously as though I had some kind of twisted ulterior motive for saving the empty seats on either side of me. In the last few minutes alone I had turned away a middle-aged couple, a teenage boy dressed in a band T-shirt and jeans, and now two pretty girls in their twenties were heading towards me at speed. I looked at my watch. The service would be starting soon. If Chris and Melissa didn’t turn up immediately it would be too late.

  Everyone knew how difficult this was for Melissa. Everyone knew that it must have been tearing her up inside that so much attention and sympathy was being directed towards Hannah with none left over for her. Of course Hannah was carrying Paul’s child. Of course they had been living together at the time of Paul’s death. But Melissa had been closer to him in spirit than anyone else. Foolishly or not she had dedicated nearly a decade of her life to loving Paul unconditionally. She had been there for him even when he hadn’t deserved it. She had been his greatest supporter when everyone around had been telling her that she needed to break free. Surely that sort of love and dedication deserved recognition on this day of all days? Surely the sacrifices she had made entitled her not to be overlooked? I had said as much to Chris when Hannah had first asked him to speak at the funeral but I knew his hands were tied. Grieving pregnant girlfriend of the deceased trumped grieving ex-girlfriend every single time. There was no way round it. Publicly acknowledging Melissa’s contribution to Paul’s life would be seen as a slight towards Hannah. And even if Hannah didn’t think that, her family and friends surely would. They would only see a pregnant woman devoid of all hope. They wouldn’t want to understand the simple truth that Paul really had loved Melissa and Melissa had loved Paul.

  Melissa

  How had it happened – how had I come to sleep with Paul? I’d asked myself the same thing a million times in light of the fact that Billy was by far the best thing in my life. I’m guessing that the key was Paul’s first words to me that night when I opened the door and he told me that he wanted to talk about ‘our baby that never was’. I
n that instant everything that had already happened that night was wiped away. All that existed was me and Paul and a secret that I had been keeping for the longest time.

  I led Paul to my bedroom so that we wouldn’t be disturbed when Susie and her boyfriend returned from their night out. With the door closed we stood and looked at each other and Paul began explaining exactly what had happened with Claudia.

  ‘I was completely out of order earlier, Mel. There’s no excuse for it. No excuse at all.’

  ‘So how did it happen then? Were you trying to get at me?’

  ‘No, of course not. This wasn’t about you, it was about me. I’ve had a lot on my mind and I thought that the answer was just to keep on drinking. I hadn’t seen Claudia in months, but then she just came out of nowhere and was throwing herself at me at every opportunity.’

  ‘And you just couldn’t resist?’

  Paul was silent.

  ‘I don’t understand why you feel the need to drink so much? Why do you feel the need to act that way?’

  ‘Because of you,’ he replied. ‘Because of what you said to me the night that we split up. I thought about phoning you a million times that night and a million times every night since but could never think what to say other than that I was sorry . . . which was just too pathetic. I decided that tonight was going to be the night that I would get you to tell me. I decided that tonight would be the night that I found out the truth.’

  I sat down on the edge of my bed and told him everything he wanted to know.

  ‘It was about a week after I found out you’d cheated on me that I discovered I was pregnant. My period was late and I kept telling myself that it was probably down to the stress of the split. But eventually I could no longer ignore what had actually happened. I bought a test – I think I might even still have it in a drawer somewhere – and it told me everything I needed to know. The following morning I saw my GP and got him to sign the form I needed to get referred to the clinic. The following week I walked alone to my appointment, arrived at the clinic at just after ten and by half past it was all over.’

  I could see he wanted to ask why I hadn’t told him, why I hadn’t given him the chance to make amends. I could see that he probably even wanted to ask if I had considered even for a second about continuing with the pregnancy. But I knew he wouldn’t ask any of these questions out loud. He wasn’t allowed. No, that wasn’t right exactly. He had disqualified himself . . . that was more accurate . . . he had disqualified himself . . . taken himself out of the running . . . invalidated any rights he might have had under normal circumstances. There could be no questioning of my actions when his own had been so selfish. I had done what I did because I’d felt utterly abandoned. I had done what I did because I knew that I was on my own. Right or wrong didn’t come into it when it had been his conduct that had been the catalyst. Any guilt for our loss was his alone.

  Holding me in his arms as I cried, Paul reminded me of how, back when we were first together, we used to talk about what it would be like to have kids. How we’d bring them up – righting the wrongs inflicted on us by our mums and dads – while passing on the stuff that we thought they’d done well. We used to try to picture our future kids; how they would look; how they would act; who they would be once the nurturing process was over. Sometimes he believed the fantasy and sometimes he didn’t, but deep down he had always felt that one day the fantasy would become reality, even after we’d split up.

  ‘I ruined everything, Mel,’ said Paul, unable to quell the tremble in his voice. ‘I ruined every last thing we had that was good. How did you stay sane through all that happened? How could you think it was possible for us to remain friends?’

  I couldn’t see the point of telling him the truth: that I kept him as a friend, that I believed in him and encouraged him to become a better person because of a misplaced belief that one day we might get the opportunity to make right the wrong that had blighted both our lives.

  As tear after tear fell in one continuous movement, Paul lifted my chin and gently grazed his lips against my cheek. Before I knew it we were hurriedly undressing each other and I told myself that what we were doing had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with saying our final goodbye. Goodbye to everything we were and everything we’d always hoped to be. It would never happen again. But Paul was the most important person in the world to me and I’d given him up without having the opportunity to savour everything that we had been together.

  Afterwards we lay in each other’s arms barely breathing for fear of breaking the spell that we had created between us. I felt as though some of the burden that I had carried for so long had been lifted. I felt less weighed down, better equipped to cope with carrying on with life, more able to deal with the problems that would inevitably come my way. We hardly exchanged a word for over an hour. But as it became obvious how little time we had left, conversation seemed to spring out of nowhere. So we talked about the good times, digging up fond memories of the early days. I reminded Paul of the first Christmas day that we had shared after we moved in together. How we had ended up spending all morning in the kitchen preparing the food only to lose interest when it was finally cooked. Leaving everything to go cold in the kitchen we had camped out on the sofa until late in the evening alternating between watching TV and dozing off in each other’s arms. Paul reminded me of our first holiday at a cheap out-of-season resort in Kos. It rained constantly, all the resort’s bars and clubs were closed and there was only one restaurant open the whole time we were there. Yet our spirits had remained so high and we had had so much fun that Paul confessed it was the best holiday he had ever taken. On and on we had mined our history for the times that had meant the most. All the bad things had distorted our story over time, and all the good times had been almost forgotten. But in the short time allotted to us this imbalance was corrected.

  It had been nearly four in the morning when I saw Paul glance anxiously at my bedside clock. Though I wanted for him to stay until morning I had already prepared myself that this couldn’t happen. The look of sorrow on his face spared me any sense of rejection. This was simply one more thing outside our control. And so, closing my eyes, I kissed him one last time.

  ‘You should go.’

  Paul got dressed in the dark. As he stood by the door I sensed that he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. Finally he moved towards the bed as though he were about to kiss me goodbye but he stopped, turned and left the room.

  Chris

  ‘I didn’t know,’ was all I could manage to say when Melissa finished telling me about her last night with Paul.

  ‘No one knew,’ Melissa replied. ‘I didn’t dare tell a soul.’ She started to cry again. ‘I feel so guilty, Chris. Really guilty. I didn’t mean it to happen. I just wanted one last goodbye. I didn’t think for a second it would end up like this.’ She sobbed even harder, hiding her face in her hands.

  ‘You and Paul . . . well, you had a connection, didn’t you?’ I said trying to calm her down. ‘And . . . well, like you say it didn’t give you a chance to say goodbye.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make it right, does it? Hannah’s carrying Paul’s kid. I slept with Paul knowing full well what I was doing. What kind of person does that make me?’

  I thought about my own recent mistakes: all the lies and deceit I’d perpetuated just to be with Polly. ‘It makes you a human being like the rest of us. Nothing more, nothing less. Just human.’

  Melissa looked up at me. ‘But that doesn’t make it right though, does it?’ she said quietly. ‘Being human is just the kind of excuse that used to trip off the tip of Paul’s tongue whenever he got himself into a tight corner. Well, do you know what? That kind of excuse didn’t work for him so I don’t see why it should work for me either. Sometimes you can’t hide behind excuses. Sometimes you just have to own up to what you’ve done and accept the consequences.’

  With that she started crying again and I pulled her closer to me and listened to the sound
of her heart breaking and I realised that she was absolutely right. Sometime you did have to own up to the things you’ve done. Sometimes the only thing you could do is tell the truth and accept the consequences of your actions.

  Vicky

  The clicking heels of the two girls in search of seats were getting closer and closer. I made one last scan of the church and saw Chris and Melissa making their way up the central aisle. The sense of relief was overwhelming and I wondered what Chris had said to persuade Melissa to come into the church. As they sat down Chris saw his friend Tony sitting with Polly and Chris’s face became ashen, as though he was about to be sick.

  The vicar opened the service with the hymn ‘He Who Would Valiant Be’ which reminded me of my youth — secondary school assemblies on cold, wet Monday mornings. Standing next to my friends. Sharing a hymn book – one between two. Refusing to sing because you’re fourteen and what’s the point? But secretly mouthing the words anyway because you’re not that much of a rebel that you’re prepared to get told off for refusing to join in. How could I not have joined in with words as comforting as ‘Since, Lord, Thou dost defend us with Thy Spirit, We know we at the end, shall life inherit’? Sung in unison with the whole room grieving as one it sounded plausible. Like the truth or something near it. And I wished that I believed in the words that I sang. I wished there really was something that carried on once this life was all over, because the thought that this might be it – that one day I might say goodbye to William and Chris as I left to go to the supermarket, or to Mum’s or out to get my hair cut and never see either of them again because of something as random and as pointless as a car crash – terrified me. If this was it, if this life was all you got with no second chance to be with the people who mean the most to you, then the only alternative was to cling on to William and Chris with all my strength. Cling on and never let go.