Come Again

by Emlyn Rees

  Well, that’s typical, isn’t it? How can she have the nerve? I’ve come all the way from South London and Miss High and Mighty can’t even be bothered to drive half a mile. I know I haven’t got a job, but honestly. She’s known about this for ages. I’ve got better things to spend my emergency dosh on than a cab fare, just because she’s being a prima donna.

  ‘Her loss,’ I shrug, curbing my desire to bitch, as I push the mugs towards Kate.

  Amy appears, blowing her nose on a large wadge of green loo roll. ‘We should get going, too.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that yet,’ I say, handing her a mug. ‘There are more important things first. We’ve got to get you in the mood.’ I put my arm around her and we all clink our mugs together.

  ‘To the hen,’ toasts Kate.

  ‘Cluck,’ says Amy.

  I give her a squeeze. ‘I’ve got a feeling in my waters that we’re going to have the time of our lives.’

  Matt

  Friday, 17.00

  ‘Gotcha!’

  Relief floods me. This is the fifth drive-by I’ve executed outside the appropriately named Stag & Hounds boozer in the last twenty minutes and – at last – I’ve found somewhere to park. I’m angry with myself. Soho on a Friday afternoon: the boozers’ Mecca. What did I expect – even if we are meeting up before most Londoners knock off work? Clear and empty streets? I pull over to the side of the road and grind the gears noisily for a couple of seconds as I attempt to locate reverse. Someone behind me blares his horn and I curse. Why the hell did I decide that this was a good place to meet up? Hell. The very word sends shivers down my spine. I put the madwoman in the park out of my mind. It’s not hell I’m heading for, I remind myself. It’s H. It’s heaven.

  I’m going to have to be careful this weekend if everything’s going to go according to plan. Or plans, seeing as there are two of them afoot. There’s the Jack plan: to give him a stag weekend he’ll – one way or another – remember for the rest of his life. And there’s the H plan: to get as close to her as I was last Friday night: to win her heart like she’s already won mine.

  I’m aware that there’s a danger that these two plans might be mutually exclusive. I know, for example, that H might freak if she suspects my double-booking of Leisure Heaven is deliberate. I also know that Jack, in spite of his recent conversion to Coupleanity, is looking forward to a weekend of unbridled male solidarity. And I also know that in spite of his advice concerning the paramount importance of strategy in the winning of H, he’s going to go apeshit when he discovers that I’ve unilaterally decided to turn Leisure Heaven into my personal chessboard of love, with him and the other guys and girls making up the pieces.

  The last serious acting I did was in 1988 when I auditioned for our school’s sixth-form production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’d seen the film and when I went along to the lunch-time auditions, it was with the wicked grin and insane eyeballs of Jack Nicolson, as perfected in the bathroom mirror at home the night before. I didn’t get the part of MacMurphy. That honour went to Danny Donaldson. This wasn’t, as I rumourmongered in the pub that evening, because he was porking Mrs McKinnery, the sixtysomething head of drama. It was because I couldn’t act. Not outside the bathroom. Not under pressure. The moment I’d set foot on the stage, I’d gone to pieces. Mrs McKinnery’s verdict on my thespian pretensions, after my allotted five minutes of strutting and snarling had passed, had summed it up perfectly: ‘What’s the matter, boy? Are you looking for the toilet?’

  And that’s my worry now: my inability to act convincingly under pressure. Exactly the same as it was when I told H I wasn’t interested in her that night in the Blue Rose. The only way I’m going to avoid a castration from H and a lynching from Jack is to act innocent at the pivotal moment when they discover their joint weekend destination. Perfectly innocent. Manage that, and this could turn out to be the best weekend of my life. Fail, and it could well be my last.

  This moment aside, though, so far with the Jack plan, so good. No one suspects a thing. Since booking us all in to Leisure Heaven on Monday, everything’s run smoothly. I’ve given Tia Maria Tel the finger workwise and pulled out my finger stagwise. Everybody knows where to meet and when. I’ve told them what to bring. I’ve got enough booze in the back of the minibus to launch the Titanic into.

  Apart from the transport, everything’s great. And that’s down to Stringer more than me. I toggle the gearstick again, but the only discernible effect is an increase in black smoke coming from the back. I picked it up an hour and a half ago, over in Clapham, from this rental company Stringer put me on to: Easy Riders. More like Sleazy Riders. Stringer said Chichi use them from time to time when they need extra staff transport at short notice, and that they’re cheap and reliable. Cheap and fucked, while unlikely to win any gold medals at the National Marketing Awards, would have been more accurate.

  The van’s thundercloud grey, with mushy-pea green go-faster stripes running round its midriff, kind of a cross between Scooby Doo’s Mystery Machine and a hearse. The interior’s not much better, with worn-out seats and a peculiar odour of goat’s cheese coming from somewhere near the back. Then there’s the pièce de résistance: thanks to a jammed cassette, all the sound system’s capable of playing is, according to the empty case, 80S Chart Classics: A Panpipes Compilation. Radical chic, indeed. And fine if you could turn it off. Or down. But you can’t do either. Because it’s stuck on volume eight and won’t be budged. It’s like being trapped in elevator hell and God only knows what H is going to think if she sees me driving this wreck. Mind you, what she’ll think of the minibus being there will probably be the least of my worries . . . I grind the gears again and this time something clicks. I check behind me, worried that it’s the noise of the bus breaking in half, then slowly reverse in to the parking space.

  Where the Jack plan’s running according to schedule, the H plan is still stuck in its starting blocks. This, it has to be said, is largely down to H herself. Or the complete absence of her, at any rate. There’s been no word from her. Not so much as a syllable. Not since her oh-so-casually executed I’ll see myself out in my bedroom last Saturday morning. Hopefully, this is down to opportunity. Hopefully, she’s been rushed off her feet what with being in Paris and finalizing stuff for the hen weekend, far too busy, no doubt, to call me up to shoot the breeze. This, at least, is what my heart says. And if that is the case, then this weekend will be exactly as I’ve dreamt. She’ll be delighted to see me and we’ll have twenty-four hours of non-stop fun together.

  My head thinks differently. My head thinks motive. Perhaps it’s nothing to do with lack of opportunity at all. Perhaps she simply doesn’t want to talk to me again. And perhaps she just wants to forget the whole incident altogether. I’m not defeatist by nature and this isn’t a possibility I want to dwell on too long, because it would depress me beyond belief.

  ‘Oi!’ someone shouts over the finishing bars of a particularly masterful piped rendition of ‘Like a Virgin’.

  I look out of the window and see Damien’s chubby face wedged firmly against the glass. I hit the window button and watch his lower lip stretch obscenely down. Damien’s a mate from Bristol. He was at school with me and Jack and now programmes computer-games title sequences for a company in Brixton. He pulls his face back and his features spring in to place. Blond receding hair. Blue-grey eyes shielded by John Lennon glasses. Cheeky grin. And looking paler than ever, probably because he’s going to become a dad in about eight weeks’ time.

  ‘Nice wheels,’ he says, stepping back and casting an appreciative eye over the Passion Wagon’s bodywork. ‘And tunes, as well,’ he adds, grinning even wider, bunching his hands round his mouth in a panpipe mime. ‘Could that be the dulcet tones of panpiped Dire Straits?’

  I notice that the track’s changed and bow my head to his eighties wisdom. ‘It could indeed.’

  ‘Nice. Good to see your taste hasn’t improved since we last met.’

  ‘Up yours.’ I shake h
ands with him and smile. This is the first time I’ve seen him since the news about his impending fatherhood broke. ‘Congratulations,’ I tell him. ‘On the incoming child. You found out who the father is yet?’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘How’s Jackie?’

  ‘Good. Pretty much taking it in her stride. We’ve been lucky. No complications.’ He kicks the front wheel, changing the subject. ‘How far’s this hunk of junk got to get us?’ He looks at me sidelong. ‘That’s if you’re prepared to tell me where you’re taking us yet . . .’

  ‘All in good time.’ I turn off the engine. ‘Are you the first one here?’ I ask.

  ‘Nah.’ He nods over at the pub. ‘I spotted you from the window. Jack and his brother . . .’ He frowns. ‘Billy, is it?’ he checks. I nod. ‘Well, they’re up at the bar. And Jimmy and Ug rang about ten minutes back. They’re in a cab. Should be here in the next five minutes.’

  Jimmy and Ug are old mates of Jack’s from college. They run a fifties seconds clothes shop on the New King’s Road. They even look alike: both of them about five ten, stocky with short-cropped dark hair. Jack and I refer to them privately as the Suicide Twins, on account of their propensity to party till they drop. I like Ug well enough. He’s not the sharpest suit on the rack, but he’s harmless enough. Jimmy, though, can be a real pain, especially when he’s wired, which these days he generally is. I remind myself about my promise to Amy that I won’t let anything happen to Jack.

  Damien checks me out from top to toe as I climb out. ‘You’re looking a bit smart, aren’t you?’

  I feel myself flush. ‘Yeah.’

  My shop-fresh Hugo Boss slacks and Romeo Gigli shirt can hardly be described as suitable stag attire. The last stag I went on was Alex’s, last year. I wore my oldest shirt and jeans, fully aware of the direct correlation between beers consumed and beers spilt. Today, though, dressing down is not an option. H will be there tonight, so there’s a chance I’ll bump in to her. And where H is concerned, I’m a peacock: all strut and display. The last thing I need is my feathers looking ruffled and tired.

  ‘Who else is coming?’ Damien asks.

  ‘Stringer,’ I say, locking the door. ‘Carl called last night. He can’t make it. Flu. So it’s just the seven of us.’

  ‘The magnificent seven,’ Damien intones with grim resolve, pulling a Bay City Rollers Fan Club hat that must have been his Dad’s from his pocket and ceremoniously donning it.

  We turn round to face the pub.

  ‘Right,’ I say, starting to cross, ‘let’s get this show on the road.’

  H

  Friday, 17.30

  ‘Come on, come on,’ I mutter, looking out on to the street for the fifth time. I’ve been waiting for Susie, Amy and Kate for half an hour and if we don’t leave soon, we’re going to be stuck all night in rush-hour traffic.

  I pull my mobile out of the recharger and make sure it’s working. I scroll through the numbers in the memory and my thumb hovers above the green call button. If I press it now, I’ll be straight through. It’s no use though, I’ve already called once and he wasn’t answering and I’m too nervous to leave a message. Anyway, he’s probably left already.

  I fall backwards on my cast-iron bed and feel my body bounce on the soft mattress. I look up at my Japanese paper lampshade and sigh. I could stay here all night, just dreaming. I’m so tired and dazed after Paris and today at the office I hardly had a chance to catch my breath, so lying here, the silence broken only by the noise of the traffic, I revel in the precious solitude. I feel like I’ve been catapulted back in to my life in London and all I want is the chance to reflect. To remember. To enjoy it all over again in my head.

  I rub my eyes, missing this moment, even though it’s not over yet. Knowing that any second the door buzzer is going to go and once again, I’m going to have no time to myself. I wish this wasn’t happening. I wish it was next weekend, so that I had a chance to get my head straight and work out how I feel.

  I take a deep breath, smile to myself and spread my arms out on the bed. I can’t believe I haven’t told Amy yet. She’ll die when she finds out. How can so much have changed in my life and yet she doesn’t know?

  I wish it was just her and me this weekend and the others weren’t coming. I need to be alone with her to analyse every bit of it. I need to talk her through the sex, to work out all the pros and cons, to decide whether it’s worth having a relationship with him.

  All I actually want to do is tell someone. I’ll burst if I don’t. And if I tell Amy, it’ll make it all real. Not just a memory.

  Even though I’ve been expecting it, the buzzer rudely interrupts my thoughts. I groan as I peel myself off the bed.

  ‘Coming,’ I yell through the intercom and grab my shoulder bag. I rake my hair in the hall mirror. I look a total state. Thank God it’s only the girls.

  Susie and Amy are on the pavement, giggling and trying to find change for the cab driver. I look at Amy and, to my horror, notice she’s wearing a cheap and nasty wedding veil, is covered in lurid make-up and has four coloured condoms safety-pinned to her jacket.

  Hmmm . . . classy. Susie’s influence, I bet.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ I ask, handing over a tenner to the embarrassed cabby. I wave his change away and stare at Amy. So much for my hopes of a heart to heart. She looks absolutely wasted.

  ‘We had a few to warm up,’ she hiccups, holding up a half-empty bottle of vodka. ‘But we’re ready now,’ she slurs.

  Kate stumbles out of the cab with all the bags, including what I assume to be Amy’s bulging suitcase and a massive duvet. She stands flimsily on the pavement, smiling lamely. As usual, I have the overwhelming urge to say ‘Boo’ to her very loudly.

  Amy kisses me before linking arms with Susie and skipping over to my car. Since I wrote off the Golf, I’ve had a 3 series BMW on loan from work. As I click the alarm button on my keys and the doors snap open, they both jump, before cracking up into peals of laughter and bundling in to the back seat.

  I wish it wasn’t me driving.

  ‘You’ll have to give me a hand,’ I say to Kate, before marching off towards my flat.

  ‘How are the others getting there?’ Kate asks, as I overload her with shopping from my dash around Tescos earlier. There’s no way I’m venturing out of walking distance of the twenty-four-hour garage without coffee, cigarettes and painkillers.

  ‘Jenny’s bringing Lorna because they live near each other and Sam’s coming separately, later on,’ I reply, dumping a large bag in her arms and throwing a kitchen roll on top. ‘OK there?’

  The whole concept of this weekend makes me want to hand over the keys of the car, barricade myself inside my flat and let them all get on with it. I know it’s my fault we’re going there, but I have to say, Leisure Heaven is my ultimate idea of hell.

  I catch my reflection in the glass as I lock the front door and realize that I look like thunder. I take a deep breath. Come on, I tell myself. This is Amy’s weekend and it’s a one-off. Next week she’ll be getting married and after that I’ll have all the time in the world to talk to her. Surely I’m big enough and ugly enough to cope with this. Just go with the flow. I close my eyes briefly.

  I will be strong.

  I will not crack.

  ‘All set, then?’ I ask, getting in to the driver’s seat and making a big effort to be jovial. Susie leans between the two front seats.

  ‘Marvellous car, H,’ she says, feeling the leather seats. She stinks of booze.

  ‘Well, I thought we’d do it in style,’ I smile. No wonder she’s so gushy. I doubt if she’s ever been in anything more plush than a public bus. Mee-ow! I check myself.

  ‘Let’s go!’ says Amy, slapping her knees, drunkenly. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘You betcha!’ I reply.

  But my plan to do just that fails. Instead of bombing down the M4 at 100mph as I’d planned, we crawl along in stop-start traffic, which isn’t exactly soothing. Remembering my resolution, I ignore
my irritation as Kate leans back and puts her feet up on my dashboard whilst she rolls her own cigarettes. In the back, Amy plays with the stereo controls and I watch her and Susie in the rear-view mirror as they swig vodka and plan the weekend. They both want to go on the waterslides when we get there.

  The only place I want to slide is in to bed.

  By 8.30 p.m., I’m completely knackered and we’ve run out of cigarettes and petrol. At last we find our exit from the motorway and cruise in to the first station. It’s a relief to have some peace and quiet. I stand holding the petrol pump, feeling the car bounce as Amy and the girls muck about inside.

  I get my phone out of my pocket and check for messages, but with a sinking heart notice that he hasn’t left one. I did give him my number, didn’t I? I left in such a rush that maybe I wrote it down wrong. But surely he should have called by now? All I want is a few words. A moment of solidarity. After all, I’m sure he’s just as stressed as me.

  I tap the last drips of petrol into the fuel hole. If I’m going to call, I’ve got to do it now, because if he calls me there’s no way I can talk to him in the car. I’m about to press the green button when I look up and see a revolting gypsy van swerving on the road. As it screeches past me, someone from inside leans out of the window. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that he’s got an odd-shaped hat on and he bellows something at me, before the van careers away.

  I give him the finger as I replace the petrol nozzle. ‘Wanker!’ I shout.

  Why have I got such a bad feeling about this weekend?

  Matt

  Friday, 20.30

  ‘Get your tits out!’

  Checking the wing mirror, I see Ug’s hairy bare torso sticking out of the window, his head adorned with the cheap plastic breast he, Jimmy and Jack fought over in the fast lane of the M4, following a drunken foot chase through the gridlocked motorway traffic outside Slough. Any hope that his bellowed comment has been swallowed up by the minibus’s sliptrickle (slipstream being too ambitious a word for this vehicle) immediately vanishes. The girl standing by the side of the garage, now some forty yards behind us, raises her middle digit in salute. There’s something familiar about her stance, something I can’t quite place . . . But then I’m distracted by a cheer from the back.