Best Man

by Matt Dunn

  Anyway, we get to the stage where we’ve finished dinner, had coffee, and have both decided that a brandy on the sofa would be the next logical step. We haven’t drunk too much – just the one bottle of wine between us, in fact – so unless we down an obscene amount of brandy we’re not going to experience the ‘drank too much’ approach. Fortunately it’s a slightly chilly evening, so I get to light the fire, which is actually a remote-controlled artistically arranged pebble-effect gas device set into the far wall, rather than actual wood – less messy and instantly adjustable. It’s nudging eleven o’clock, and tomorrow’s not a school day, so there’s no time pressure on Charlie to go home, and, of course, being London we know she can get a cab any time she wants to, so it’s not as if either of us is working to a deadline.

  So, to sum up, I’m sitting on my sofa a few inches away from Charlie, the night is still young, we’ve eaten well (even if I do say so myself) and we’re bathed in the flickering light from the fire in the corner. We’re sipping brandy, and talking about nothing in particular, and my biggest concern is, how do I initiate that first physical contact?

  I remember back to early dates as a teenager in the cinema, and that old, corny arm round the back of the seat trick, slowly inching it down on to her shoulder, and then further if conditions were favourable. Surely I can’t try that approach here, I reason. I’m a mature, responsible adult. Surely the big thing to do would be to say something direct, with a hint of romance thrown in, like ‘I’ve been thinking about kissing you all evening’, which, although more of an observation than a question, would usually provoke some sort of answer, unless it’s the dreaded ‘That’s nice’, or similar, which then throws the ball firmly back in my court. I’m mulling this over as Luciano comes on again, and I get up to change the music.

  ‘It’s okay,’ says Charlie, standing up too. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘No, that’s fine, I’m there,’ I tell her, picking up a couple of CDs from the mantelpiece. ‘Any requests?’

  ‘Just the one,’ she says.

  I turn round to find her standing right in front of me. I’m holding a CD in each hand, and hold them both out towards Charlie so she can choose between them, but instead she steps in between my outstretched arms, puts her hands on my waist and leans forwards and upwards to kiss me. I bend my head down and our lips meet, her tongue poking gently into my mouth, leaving me in no doubt that this is more than a ‘thank you for dinner’ kiss. I move to take her head in my hands, and then realize I’m still holding the two CDs, which I have to try and transfer to one hand and put back on the shelf behind me, all the while trying not to break lip contact with her. We kiss like this for a few minutes, until she pulls away, walks over to the coffee table and picks up the two brandy glasses.

  ‘Where’s your bedroom?’ she asks, and I find myself having to think before I answer.

  ‘Um, through there,’ I reply, indicating the door at the end of the hallway.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asks me, a smile playing on her lips.

  ‘What – am I sure where my bedroom is, or am I sure I want to do this?’

  ‘Well, I hope the answer’s yes to both of those questions,’ she says, walking down the hallway and stopping by the bedroom door. ‘Do you mind?’

  I frown. ‘Do I mind what?’

  Charlie laughs and holds up the brandy glasses. ‘The door, I mean. I’ve got both hands full. And hopefully not for the last time this evening.’

  Later, much later (I’m adding the ‘much’ for effect), I’m pleased to be able to provide Mark with several informed proofs for his theory. We have one of those nights where, without going into too many details, we make love, fall asleep, and then wake up in the middle of the night and make love again. It’s a cliché, I know, but I usually can’t stand those women who like to sleep entwined. I’ve researched the subject a little, and so I’m okay with the mandatory twenty-minute post-coital holding period, but when women want to go to sleep in that position – no thanks. Sharp toenails, breathing directly into my face or, the worst, tickly hair all guarantee a night of no sleep for me, and even though I have a large double bed (it’s ‘queen’ size, actually, but I don’t dare mention this for fear of ridicule), if they still want to occupy the space directly next to me I can’t seem to get a good night’s rest.

  But with Charlie I sleep, and even dream, and after we’ve woken up in the middle of the night for, well, seconds, I sleep again, soundly, until at eight o’clock the next morning the phone rings, waking us both with a start. I lie there and ignore it, until the answerphone clicks on, and my mother’s voice is piped loudly into the hallway. Like most old people, my mother gets up at the same, ridiculously early time at the weekend as she does on a weekday, and thinks that the rest of the world does too. Of course, it won’t have occurred to her that Charlie might still be here.

  ‘Adam, it’s your mum.’ I know – I recognize your voice, I always think. ‘I just wanted to check that your dinner with your young lady went well, and my instructions were clear . . .’

  I jump out of bed, run into the hallway and switch the volume down, and find myself blushing, not least because I’m standing in front of Charlie naked. She looks at me from the bed, bleary eyed but smiling, and stretches. I try not to stare as the duvet falls down, exposing her breasts.

  ‘Tell your mother she’s taught you well,’ she says. ‘The shepherd’s pie, I mean!’

  She surveys the room, as if seeing it for the first time, and spots my dressing gown hanging on the back of the door. Unashamedly she throws the duvet off and gets up, walks over to the door, and pulls on the towelling robe. I’m always amazed by that morning-after bathroom embarrassment, where someone who you’ve spent the previous evening exploring inside and out should then feel awkward about a three-yard walk to the bathroom unless they’re completely covered from head to foot in the same sheet that was discarded with such relish the night before. With Charlie, there’s none of that, and while I enjoyed the brief sight of her naked as she walked over, unabashed, to the door, if anything she looks even sexier in a robe that’s too big for her.

  ‘Coffee would be lovely,’ she replies to my unasked question, and disappears into the bathroom, calling ‘Can I have a shower?’ back over her shoulder. I fetch a clean towel out of the hall cupboard and shyly pass it round the half-open door to her.

  I pull on my boxer shorts and a T-shirt and stroll out of the bedroom with, I notice, a slight spring in my step. In the kitchen, I realize there’s no breakfast food in the house and so, quickly donning a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, I run down to the corner store and pick up an assortment of croissants, pastries and some fresh milk.

  I know that I’ve got about fifteen minutes before Charlie will emerge from the bathroom, so I’m back and ready with a pot of steaming coffee and warmed pastries by the time she appears in the kitchen, freshly scrubbed, and still wearing my robe, I’m pleased to note.

  We sit eating breakfast, perhaps a little uncomfortably, but this is more as a result of those stupid designer stools I bought that aren’t quite big enough in the seat and have a too-low foot rest, than the previous evening’s activities. We’re not saying much as we sip our coffee, but then Charlie breaks the silence.

  ‘Thanks for a lovely evening.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Oh, and thank your mum for a great shepherd’s pie recipe. Maybe I’ll get to try the original one day?’

  ‘That sounds like this was more than a one-night stand?’

  ‘Well, that depends on one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Charlie grins. ‘You asking me out again, of course!’

  ‘So,’ I say, standing up to clear the table once we’ve finished our croissants. ‘What do you normally like to do on a Sunday morning?’

  She gives me a playful look. ‘Stay in bed.’

  ‘Sounds perfect,’ I reply, and lead her by the hand back into the bedroom.

  That night, I meet Nick in Ba
r Rosa. ‘I don’t need to ask you how your evening went,’ he says, as I yawn for the thirtieth time. ‘No disasters with the cooking, I take it?’

  ‘Nope – thanks, Mum,’ I say.

  ‘And how was Charlie?’

  ‘Fine, once she’d got something warm inside her.’

  Nick grimaces. ‘Oh please. Spare me the details.’

  ‘Spare me no details,’ calls Rudy, who’s been eavesdropping from behind the bar.

  ‘So, when are you seeing her again?’ Nick asks me.

  ‘Er . . .’ I suddenly realize that I haven’t arranged anything, and feel a momentary panic.

  Nick raises one eyebrow. ‘Oh yes? Do I detect a little problem creeping in?’

  ‘No, I just want to take things . . . steadily.’

  Nick looks at me disdainfully. ‘What was it this time? The way she holds her fork? Does she snore? Or wasn’t she very—’

  I cut him off. ‘No. Nothing like that. It’s just that . . .’ How do I explain that it’s quite the opposite, and rather that it’s because I don’t want to muck it up that I’m not rushing in? I’m considering my answer, but Nick interprets my hesitation as confirmation.

  ‘You see!’ he announces. ‘I was right. That’s the end of her after . . .’ he looks at his watch, ‘what, two weeks? Next please!’

  I bristle slightly. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. And if I was working to your timetable, I suppose Charlie would have moved in by now.’

  Nick glares. ‘You know what your problem is? Or rather, who your problem is?’

  I feel myself start to tense up. ‘Why don’t you tell me.’

  ‘That one who left you. What was her name again?’

  I can’t bring myself to mention it. ‘I know who you mean.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Since her, you’ve been scared to let yourself get involved with anyone. Even when there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them.’

  I stare at him, open mouthed. ‘That’s not true. I . . .’

  ‘Okay. I’ll give you an example. What was the name of that girl you met last year?’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  ‘The one you met at the gym.’

  ‘Again, can you be more specific?’

  ‘The one with the huge breasts?’

  ‘I need a little bit more to go on than that . . .’

  ‘You know, the lawyer,’ says Nick.

  ‘Mandy.’

  ‘Mandy. That’s right. Like a photo-finish in a Zeppelin race, if I remember correctly. You went out with her for a while, didn’t you?’

  I have to think about this for a few moments. ‘Yeah, about a month, I think.’

  ‘Blessed-in-the-chest Mandy,’ sighs Nick. ‘What was wrong with her, for example? We had high hopes with that one.’

  I shrug. ‘Much as I’m enjoying this trip down Mammary Lane, I can’t remember.’

  But, of course, I can. I remember them all, however short lived, and I remember Mandy particularly. Lovely girl, very bright, we got on extremely well, but in the end it was the sex that was the problem. You know that phrase that men always get insecure about and women always joke about: ‘size matters’? For me, with women, sighs matter. With some of the women I’ve slept with, orgasm has been almost a religious experience: ‘Oh God, oh God,’ and so on. Others come in the affirmative: ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ while some are in denial: ‘No, no, no.’You understand what I mean. But with Mandy, it was worse. You know that sensation when you take a mouthful of food that’s too hot, but you’re in much too polite company to spit it back on your plate, so you have to make an ‘O’ with your mouth and do that sort of chimpanzee puffing and blowing in an attempt to get as quick a passage of air passing over it as possible in order to try and cool it down? That was the noise she made in bed. I kept getting visions of Cheetah in those old black and white Tarzan films flashing through my head every time we slept together, and knew it could never last.

  Nick laughs. ‘It’s lucky that not everyone responds to being dumped like you did.’

  I’m getting irritated now. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘By becoming a serial shagger for the rest of their lives.’

  ‘Bollocks!’

  ‘Bollocks yourself, Adam. Ever since she-whose-name-we-dare-not-speak left you, you’ve been treating relationships like . . .’ he searches for an example, ‘like those little pots of tester paint that you can buy from the DIY store. All you ever do is paint a small corner of your room, just to see how it looks, and then quickly decide you don’t like the colour, because it’s not as good as the original.’

  ‘That’s not true. I . . .’

  Nick rolls his eyes. ‘Don’t you get it? Sometimes you’ve just got to go ahead and paint the entire room. See what it looks like after you’ve lived with it for a while.’

  I suddenly sense an opportunity to turn the conversation round: a chance to tell Nick what I really think about what he’s doing.

  ‘Yes, but . . . how can this approach guarantee that you’re going to be happy with this woman for the rest of your life? I mean, especially if you’ve not known her for that long.’ This is the best I can do, and, although it’s clumsy, it seems to do the trick.

  ‘Because how else can you find out what—’ Nick’s face darkens. ‘Hold on, who exactly are we talking about here?’

  I struggle to keep the metaphor going. ‘It’s just that . . . Sandra . . . Well, you’re painting the entire house, aren’t you? And you’ve . . .’ What’s my killer line? Got too small a brush? I run out of steam. ‘. . . bought gloss by mistake?’

  It’s Nick’s turn to get annoyed. ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘I think you can do better than Sandra.’ There.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ he asks me, his voice just about managing to stay level.

  ‘Well, she’s . . . not very friendly, is she?’

  He looks at me crossly. ‘Is that the best you can do? Besides, you’ve hardly given her a chance to be.’

  ‘But that’s because . . .’ I stop myself because he’s actually correct on that point. ‘Don’t you worry even a little that she might not be the one for you?’

  ‘Jesus, Adam. Just because we don’t all have your . . .’ He pauses, trying to find the right word.

  ‘Standards?’ I reply, a little too quickly.

  Nick grabs his keys from the table and stands up angrily. ‘No, I was actually going to say “idiosyncrasies”, but I was worried that you wouldn’t know what it meant.’

  ‘But shouldn’t you at least wait until you’re sure?’

  ‘What – and be alone for the rest of my life like you? No thanks! Because unlike you, I’m not scared to put my money where my mouth is. If you’d been in a proper relationship for more than five minutes you’d know what I’m talking about.’ He looks at me pityingly and shakes his head. ‘And you’ve got the nerve to try and give me advice?’

  My window of opportunity is closing rapidly, I realize, but before I can say anything more Nick slams it firmly shut. And on my fingers.

  ‘Oh yes. Something you might want to think about before you hand out any more marriage guidance,’ he says, just before he makes for the door. ‘At least mine didn’t run a mile when I asked her.’

  Chapter 11

  Great. Less than four weeks to go until the big day, and I’ve blown my best and only chance of talking Nick out of it, particularly because he’s not even speaking to me at the moment. By Monday evening, I decide that I can’t face any more of his barely polite grunting in the office, and some R&R away from it all in Snowdonia seems a good idea. When I call Charlie, she answers after the third ring.

  ‘What are you doing for the next couple of days?’ I ask her.

  ‘Er, nothing. I’ve got to work on Friday, but . . . Why?’ she says, drawing out the last word.

  ‘I thought I’d take you away somewhere. Dirty weekend and all that.’

  I hear her laugh down the phone. ‘A dirty weekend – and in the middle of the week,
too! Where are we going?’

  ‘It’s a surprise.’

  ‘Will I need my passport?’

  I try and remember whether there’s border control on the Severn Bridge. ‘Er, no.’ I suddenly feel cheap.

  ‘Oh. A posh frock for the evening?’

  ‘I was thinking more like hiking boots and waterproofs . . .’

  There’s a slight pause before she answers. ‘Oh. Lovely.’ But I can hear the disappointment in her voice, and have to think on my feet.

  ‘Only kidding. Posh frock would be good.’ I tell her. Damn.

  ‘Sounds great,’ she says, sounding much happier all of a sudden.

  My next call is to the B&B I’d booked in North Wales to cancel, and then, in a moment of inspiration, I ring the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Being my old ‘stamping ground’, I reason, it will be a good excuse to show Charlie where I spent some of my formative years. I’m worried they won’t have a room at such short notice, but fortunately they have a suite with a sea view that the receptionist describes as ‘stunning’, and although the price is pretty stunning, too, I just grit my teeth and book it anyway.

  The next afternoon, when I pick her up as arranged, Charlie seems to have packed for two weeks rather than two days, and I almost give myself a hernia as I struggle to carry her luggage down the stairs and squeeze her bags into the Impresser’s boot next to my small holdall. Heading out of the capital, we join the thousands of other Londoners intent on spending three hours in their cars driving at five miles an hour through the biggest car park in the world – the M25. My turbocharged engine sits there in danger of overheating, but thanks to the automatic climate control, which I always think is an interesting concept in England, we don’t.

  As we near Gatwick Airport, Charlie pretends to get all excited, and asks me if this is our exit, telling me she’s brought her passport just in case. I take the off-ramp just to see her jaw drop in amazement, and then rejoin the motorway straight away without saying a word.