Best Man

by Matt Dunn

  In the midst of all this I also have to think about my speech, as I haven’t written a word yet. I even go as far as phoning Nick’s dad to ask him for any amusing family anecdotes about Nick’s childhood, only to replace the phone an hour later wondering how I can possibly make any of his stories sound funny but now feeling duty-bound to include at least one.

  At the same time, because I find myself spending more and more of my spare time with Charlie, I feel less and less able to criticize Nick, mainly because Charlie and I are moving at a pace that makes his and Sandra’s romance look positively pedestrian. We’re already at that stage in our relationship where we’re not quite living together but don’t spend many nights apart. As is customary, I’ve left a toothbrush at her place, and she’s taken three out of the four shelves in my bathroom cabinet for her stuff. Charlie is happily disproving that monogamy equals monotony, and whilst neither of us have actually used the ‘L’ word yet, she has given me a key to her front door. I have had a spare key cut to my flat for her, too – I just haven’t actually got round to giving it to her yet.

  By Wednesday evening I’m exhausted by all the goings-on, so I’ve postponed the usual night with Mark at Bar Rosa until Friday, and am instead sitting with Charlie in her flat, watching a video, with beer and pizza for company. I used to do this regularly every Sunday round at my place with Nick and, when he could make it, Mark. It’s another tradition that started back when we were at college as some sort of film appreciation evening, where Mark would try and get us to watch some obscure art-house movie he’d read about in the Guardian, but we’d always end up with the latest Bruce Willis action-adventure, or the next instalment in the Rocky series.

  We’d kept it going for as long as we could, but it kind of fizzled out after Mark moved westwards. He’d decided, or rather Julia decided for him, that it was a little inconvenient – I think her word was ‘selfish’ – for him to travel back into London on Sunday nights ‘for some silly college piss-up ritual’. Again, her words.

  We’ve chosen a film called Devil’s Advocate, starring Al Pacino, whom I’m a big fan of, playing a lawyer who’s the devil, and Keanu Reeves, who Charlie likes, as . . . well, I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it yet. We’re lying on Charlie’s sofa, sprawled in that familiar, comfortable way, munching pizza and drinking beer from the bottle, as we sit through the obligatory twenty minutes of trailers before the film starts. Charlie wants to fast forward, but I like to watch them, as I think trailers are a great idea.

  I used to wish that women would come with trailers too (and don’t get me started on the value of subtitles). That way, rather than having to endure the whole full-blown relationship, you’d have a chance to assess a summary of what’s in store for you. Thinking about it, that’s why it’s sometimes a good idea to try and sleep with a woman on the first date – that way you know if the main action sequence is any good, and what the special effects are like without having to sit through the endless dialogue to get there. Then again, trailer or no trailer, subtitles or not, my problem is that, up until now, all the endings have been the same.

  We watch the video draped comfortably over each other, but have to pause it for half an hour when other events take over (we’ve only been dating for a few weeks, don’t forget, so stuff like this still happens at impromptu moments). Then, when the film’s finished, and at the risk of sounding like an old married couple, we decide that we’ll have a cup of tea. I go into the kitchen and put the kettle on, but when Charlie opens the fridge she finds that there’s no milk.

  ‘Don’t worry – I’m happy to have it black,’ I say, generously.

  ‘I’m not,’ she replies, and before I can offer to go for her she announces that she’ll get some from the corner shop, walks over and kisses me, and heads out.

  I’ve not been in her flat alone before, and it feels a little daring, so I have a bit of a nose round, walk into the bedroom, open the wardrobe doors, that sort of thing. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’m enjoying looking – it’s as if it helps to build a picture of her apart from me, or something. She’s very neat, and her bedroom’s not too girly you know, not a soft toy in sight, or any of those pathetic little troll-type dolls with the brightly coloured flyaway hair, but actually quite feminine and sophisticated, and for a moment that makes me a little panicky as I wonder whether Julia’s right, and that Charlie might soon see through the ‘likes’ of me.

  And then it happens. You know when you read those interviews with people who have climbed Everest, and asked why they did it they say, ‘Because it’s there’? Well, suddenly, in Charlie’s underwear drawer (which I’ve only opened with a mind to check her size for future purchases, you understand, rather than to try anything on), I see it – an expensive-looking leather-bound volume with, quite simply, ‘Diary’ written on the front. It’s too ornate to be simply a planner, so I guess it must contain some of her inner thoughts and feelings.

  I push the drawer shut guiltily, then open it again. Why is it in a drawer? And why her underwear drawer? Has she hidden it away from me when she knew I was coming round for the evening? Does she always keep it in here? Is she embarrassed about what she’s written in there about me so she’s panicked and shoved it in the first place she could think of? I pick it up, and it feels surprisingly weighty in my hand.

  I know where the corner shop is, so I reckon I have about five minutes before she comes back. The devil (Al Pacino) on my left shoulder is of course saying Go on, open it, have a read – what harm can it do? The angel (who may or may not be Keanu) on my right is, of course, saying Just put it back and forget you ever saw it – which is what I do. Then take it straight out again, telling myself that Al’s right. A little look won’t do any harm.

  This is how drug addicts start – just a tiny bit won’t hurt. I know that if I even glance at the first page then I’m going to want to read the whole thing, which of course I can’t do in five minutes. I also might not get a chance to see it again, because this may just have been a temporary hiding place utilized in panic, and next time I’m here I might find that she’s put it somewhere out of my reach.

  Okay then, I decide, I’ll just have a little peek. As I say, because it’s there. I open the diary and turn to the date I first met her, but stop myself just for a second. What if I read something that I can’t ignore, and then can’t possibly confront her about because she’ll know I could only have read it in her diary, or alternatively do confront her about, which would tell her that I’d both read her diary and been looking in her underwear drawer, neither of which I’d be keen to admit.

  When I do flick through, much to my disappointment and relief at the same time (which are two strange feelings to have concurrently), I can’t find anything too revealing. It’s mostly factual stuff, times, places, dates, work appointments – nothing much personal at all, in fact, and I’m just about to put it away again when I see it. Scribbled inside the back cover is a list of signatures, like when you’re buying a new pen and you try it out several times by writing your name on the sheet of paper they offer. The Christian names are repeated, but randomly. Charlotte, Charlie, C., Charlotte again, and so on, until at the bottom, it says ‘Mrs Charlotte . . .’ But it’s the surnames that have been scribbled as if she’s trying to get used to them that catch my eye. And why? Because it’s not ‘Evans’ she’s been practising signing, but ‘Bailey’.

  By the time Charlie arrives back with the milk, my tracks are well and truly covered, and I’m sitting in her lounge flicking through her latest copy of Cosmo. But, as fascinating as the article on What Your Vibrator Says About You is, I can’t stop wondering what I’ve just seen in her diary means. Is it just some childish fun? Something that girls of all ages do? Or is it all part of some sinister plan to lure me into marriage? And later, before I finally drop off next to a soundly sleeping Charlie, I’m troubled by a much more pressing issue. What on earth do I feel about it?

  The next morning my watch alarm wakes me at
eight. Charlie is still comatose, so I slip out without disturbing her and sneak off to the office early, propping a note up on the kitchen table reminding her to take the video back. Such a romantic.

  Nick’s not in, so I decide to try and clear the backlog of work that’s mounted up over the last few days, but instead spend nearly the whole morning just rewriting the front page on the website – a job that normally takes me no more than an hour. For some reason I can’t seem to concentrate on what I’m doing, and I’m having a hard time getting excited about the sites that I’m supposed to be describing in such glowing terms. As I’ve said before, there’s only so many pictures of naked women you can look at, and, although that number is pretty high, I am, I tell myself, a creative after all, and need to be inspired by what I’m seeing in order to come up with a suitable tag line. But in reality it’s because I can’t stop thinking about what I saw in Charlie’s diary.

  I’m deliberating over a particularly dull site of supposedly candid voyeur shots, where in actual fact the ‘voyeured’, if that’s the right word, seems to be fully aware of the camera, because she’s looking right into it, and the only way we’re supposed to know they are actually voyeur shots is that the webmaster has superimposed those binocular outlines on each picture, just like they do in films. I’m snapped out of my musings by a phone call from reception.

  ‘Delivery for you, Adam,’ says Becky, in a somewhat strange voice. I don’t get many deliveries at the office, so I walk down to reception, somewhat intrigued. When I get to her desk she’s got a silly smile on her face, and she smirks as she produces a huge bunch of flowers from underneath her desk, along with the card, which she’s opened.

  ‘Sorry, but I didn’t know who they were for,’ she says, handing them over guiltily.

  ‘Didn’t the delivery driver know?’

  ‘Oh, yes, but I thought it was strange, you getting flowers, so I just had to check. Anyway, they seem to be from one of your, you know,’ she lowers her voice, despite there being no one else in earshot ‘. . . gay friends.’

  Snatching the card from her hand, I take the flowers back to the office. I’ve seen the name Charlie on the bottom, under a tiny paragraph of writing that I’d rather be in private to read. This is the second time Charlie’s bought me flowers, and again I don’t quite know what to make of it, but I’m secretly flattered, particularly when I read the card and it says: ‘Thanks for a lovely evening! If you’ve recovered in time, same again, same place, tonight?’ She’d signed it not ‘love’, or anything like that, but ‘Yours, in a number of positions, Charlie’. Probably explains why Becky was smirking.

  I pick up the phone and make two calls. The first is to Charlie, and I get her message service. I’m embarrassed when I have to say ‘Thanks for the flowers’, and I leave a rather formal message confirming this evening. The second call I make is to Becky, on reception. I simply say, ‘Charlie is a girl!’ and put the phone down.

  After ten more minutes of hardcore pornography I decide I need a break, and stroll out past the still-grinning Becky to my favourite coffee shop, a little Italian family-owned place just round the corner. I order an espresso, sit down at one of the outside tables and open the copy of the Telegraph that I’ve bought on the way.

  Sipping my coffee, I stare at the crossword for a while, hoping that one or two of the answers might magically materialize in front of my eyes. It’s one of those cryptic bastards, where I’m sure there’s a knack once you learn what all the ‘clever’ references actually mean, but I’ve never really had the patience (or seen the point, to be honest). I scan through the clues a couple of times, but only manage to get two of the answers, and I’m not even sure about one of them, so I put it back down untouched. I always think it’s worse to start one and only fill in a couple of clues in a pathetic attempt that others can see than to just admit defeat and not bother at all, thus escaping with your dignity intact. Pretty much my philosophy on life really.

  When I look up, I see a not unattractive woman sitting at the next table, a large cup of cappuccino in one hand and an identical copy of the Telegraph in the other. I don’t know how I’d missed seeing her sit down – perhaps the old radar is not functioning properly given Charlie and all that. But as I’m watching her she looks up and our eyes meet, so I quickly glance back to my paper with the sort of practised half-smile that says ‘Yes, you caught me staring but it was really just an innocent scout round, kind of looking up for air if you like, and our eyes just happened to meet, but I wasn’t flirting or anything . . .’ Or that’s what I intend it to mean, anyway.

  In the video Charlie and I watched last night, Al Pacino, the devil, ends the film by saying something like ‘Vanity – that’s my favourite sin’, and proceeds to give Keanu the opportunity to, metaphorically speaking, hang himself, by tempting him through his own egotism. And it’s true, I think, that in life, just when things are going along nicely, someone, though probably not Al Pacino, always comes along and presents the opportunity to fuck it all up.

  The sensible thing would be to look away and find a story in the paper that was the most interesting, absorbing thing I’ve ever read, or pretend that I am stuck on a particularly difficult anagram or something. Not meet her gaze again and smile, which is, stupidly, what I do.

  It’s kind of like when you walk past a swimming pool whilst fully dressed. You’ve no intention of actually diving in there and then, but you still might perhaps kneel down and dip a finger in the water, just to see how warm it is. For us men, if you’re in a relationship the same feeling applies when you meet someone else you’re attracted to. It’s sort of testing that you can pull without actually going through with it.

  Normally you can tell, even if it’s just a quick interaction in a shop, a couple of words of jokey banter perhaps. You can walk away, head held high, knowing that if you’d wanted to you could probably have extended the conversation a little, maybe even suggested a drink, or at least have left with that prized possession – her number. Indifference is the defining factor. If you can remain fairly impartial, or even uninvolved, then chances are things won’t go any further, and you’ll escape with your ego massaged slightly but no real harm done. The problem is when you’re so used to working on automatic, or haven’t properly disengaged autopilot, and so of course I can’t help but look back up half a second later, and, of course, she’s still looking at me.

  But what happens next surprises me, as she picks up her coffee, walks over and sits down at my table. As she puts her cup down next to mine, I can’t stop myself checking her hand for a wedding ring.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she says, ‘but don’t I know you from somewhere?’

  Oh please, I think, is this how corny it sounds when we men use the line? But of course I’m flattered, and this gives me the opportunity to look at her more fully in an attempt to try and place her. ‘I don’t think so,’ I reply, just about managing to stop myself from adding ‘I’m sure I would remember.’

  ‘Yes,’ she continues, ‘from the gym? I teach aerobics there. Haven’t you been to one of my classes?’

  Now, you’ll know that whenever a girl comes over and introduces herself as an aerobics instructor, her attractiveness increases by a factor of around fifty. It’s one of those handful of careers that can seriously elevate a woman’s appeal, along with masseuse, nurse and, of course, porn star, but then how many porn stars do you actually ever meet in real life? Not nearly enough, probably.

  ‘Er, no. Aerobics isn’t really my thing,’ I say, worried that she’s caught me sneakily watching through the studio doorway. Truth is I have tried one class, but even hiding at the back hadn’t prevented me from being sniggered at by some of the regulars, who obviously knew the routines off by heart, whereas I didn’t know my grapevine from, well, whatever anything else was called.

  Her name is Diana, which try as I might cannot be shortened into anything remotely masculine, from what I can tell she pronounces everything correctly, and when I surreptitious
ly retrieve my serviette from where I’ve ‘accidentally’ dropped it under the table, I notice that her ankles are in no way fat. Everything that I’d normally look for is here, present and correct.

  So here I am, with just the keeper to beat, and yet I find myself kicking the ball firmly into my own goal by telling her about my girlfriend (yes, I use that word). We have a pleasant chat over coffee, and when it’s time to leave we shake hands formally, I tell her I’ll see her at the gym some time, and it doesn’t even occur to me to ask for her number.

  Looking back on this later, I realize that this is some sort of test that I, or maybe even Charlie, have just gone through without knowing it. Whatever, but we’ve both passed with flying colours.

  Chapter 16

  It’s Friday morning, and I’m lying in my bed, Sandra standing over me with a knife in her hand, when suddenly I’m woken up by strange sounds coming from my bathroom. There’s a space next to me where Charlie should be which is pretty cold, and I’m sure I can hear retching.

  I get up, cursing the cheese I ate before going to bed last night, but check warily round the room for any actual signs of Sandra before sleepily making my way towards the bathroom door. I’m pleased to see it’s shut; my idea of hell is being in a relationship where you’re both comfortable enough to use the toilet in front of each other, and some things are better kept as a mystery. I knock, softly at first, and then louder when I get no response.