by Matt Dunn
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into the workings of the male mind’ Sun
‘A well-crafted tale of when love goes wrong
and loves goes right – witty, astute but tender too’
Freya North
‘Frighteningly funny and sometimes just plain
frightening . . . the most realistic perspective on
the average man’s world view most women will
get without hanging around in a locker room’
Chris Manby
‘Delightfully shallow and self-obsessed – that’s the
male psyche for you’ Elle
‘An amusing insight into the minds of men’
Daily Express
‘A warm, open and damn funny book’ Lads Mag
‘Both hilarious and touching’ Best
‘Hilarious’ Cosmopolitan
By the same author
Best Man
The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook
From Here to Paternity
Ex-Girlfriends United
About the author
Matt Dunn is the author of four previous bestselling novels, including The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook, which was shortlisted for both the Romantic Novel of the Year Award and the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. He has also written about life, love and relationships for various publications including The Times, Guardian, Cosmopolitan, Company, Glamour, Elle and the Sun.
Matt was born in Margate, but eventually escaped to Spain to write his first novel in between working as a newspaper columnist and playing a lot of tennis. Previously he has been a professional lifeguard, fitness-equipment salesman and an IT headhunter, but he prefers writing for a living, so please keep buying his books.
Visit the author at www.mattdunn.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Pocket Books, 2009
An imprint of Simon & Schuster UK, Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Matt Dunn, 2009
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
Pocket Books & Design is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The right of Matt Dunn to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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ISBN 978-1-84739-523-8
eBook ISBN 978-1-84983-053-9
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual people living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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For Loz
Chapter 1
I’m in my studio when my mobile rings, and while the sound of heavy breathing is initially exciting, it doesn’t take me long to realize that it’s just Ashif.
‘How’d you get on with her?’ he asks, evidently panting from the effort of walking along the pavement, given the heavy footsteps I can hear in the background.
‘Who, Ash?’
‘You know – that woman who wanted you to paint that portrait of her.’ I can almost hear him grinning down the phone line. ‘Nude.’
Ash is my art dealer, although when I say dealer, in truth his family own the Indian restaurant on the seafront where I display my work in return for a ten per cent cut on any that get sold.
‘Ash, she was about seventy.’
‘So?’
‘And more importantly, she wanted me to be nude, as it turned out.’
‘Ah.’ There’s a pause, and then Ash clears his throat. ‘But you’re still doing it, right?’
‘What do you think?’ I say, realizing I probably already know the answer to that question. ‘Of course not.’
‘That, Ben, is the reason you’re still what’s known in the trade as a “struggling artist’’,’ sighs Ash, no doubt picturing his commission disappearing down the drain. What else he does for money, I’m not exactly sure, but there must be something, as given the number of pictures I actually sell, or how few commissions that come my way as a result of his dealings, I can hardly live on the ninety per cent I get.
‘Yes, well, as I’ve told you a hundred times, I’m not prepared to compromise my principles.’
Ash snorts loudly into the receiver. ‘And as I’ve told you a thousand times, principles are for people who can afford them. And right now, that’s not you.’
‘Well, if you wouldn’t mind perhaps qualifying some of these dodgy enquiries that you keep sending my way a little better, then maybe one day it will be.’
‘So what if you have to kiss the occasional frog? It’s a numbers game.’
‘No, that’s accountancy, and if you remember, I’ve given that up. This is art,’ I say, conscious that it sounds more than a little pretentious.
‘So, where does the term “painting by numbers” come from, then?’ says Ash, feebly.
‘Ash, that’s . . .’ I stop talking, and wonder again at the wisdom of letting someone who knows absolutely nothing about the art world represent me. ‘Never mind. What did you want?’
‘What did I want?’ repeats Ash, as if he’s forgotten the reason for his call. ‘Oh. Right. I was wondering what you were up to.’
I stare at the painting on the easel in front of me, which I’ve spent most of the day tweaking, but just can’t seem to get right. ‘Working, Ash. That’s what I do when I’m here in my studio.’
‘Ah,’ says Ash. ‘I did wonder. Anyway, let me in, will you? I need to talk to you, and it’s freezing out here.’
‘You’re outside? What the hell are you doing calling me on the phone, then?’
‘Well, I thought you might be doing her. Painting, her, I mean. That woman. And I didn’t want to interrupt you.’
‘Well don’t, then.’
‘Wait! I’ve got something important to tell . . .’
I click the phone off and slip it back into my pocket, then try to ignore the sound of banging from the front door, until it’s clear it’s not going to stop, before making my way along the hallway and down the stairs. My studio’s in the upstairs part of an old shop, one of a few in this part of Margate’s old town that the council is renting out for next to nothing to local craftspeople or artists like me in an attempt to regenerate the area, and, as I reach the ground floor, I can see Ash’s face peering in anxiously through a gap in the whitewashed glass.
‘Where’s the fire?’ I say as I let him in.
‘Well, it’s not in here, more’s the pity,’ he says, exhaling exaggeratedly, then nodding towards the fog breath he has produced. ‘Why on earth do you work in these conditions?’
‘Because they’re chea
p, Ash. And Turner lived just around the corner, you know?’
Ash frowns. ‘Tina Turner?’
‘No, Ash. Turner. The painter?’ I shake my head slowly at Ash’s blank expression. ‘Besides, with you as my dealer, it’s all I can afford.’
‘Agent, please,’ he says, still a little out of breath from his walk. Ash is a little on the large side, but then so would I be if I lived above the Indian Queen. ‘Dealer sounds a little, well, druggy.’
‘Sorry, Ashif.’ I give him a mock salute. ‘Agent. And what’s with the suit?’
‘Why? What’s wrong with it?’ says Ash, picking an imaginary bit of fluff from his jacket.
‘Nothing. I just hope the judge was impressed.’ Ash got a new BMW a few months ago – a thirtieth birthday present from his parents – and already has nine points for speeding on his licence.
He opens his mouth as if to respond, then evidently thinks better of it. ‘Where have you been?’ he says, as I lock the door carefully behind him. Not that there’s much in here to steal, but last time I left it open, someone actually put a bin-liner full of old clothes inside, obviously harking back to the charity shop it once was. ‘I’ve been phoning you all afternoon.’
I follow him upstairs, retrieving my mobile from my pocket and looking at the screen, where Ash’s two missed calls are clearly visible. ‘All afternoon? I hardly think a couple of calls five minutes apart qualify as “all afternoon”.’
‘Yeah, but you never, er, don’t answer your phone,’ says Ash, frowning at his own bad English. ‘If you know what I mean?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I lie, having ignored his earlier calls on purpose, then point towards my painting. ‘I was just a little preoccupied with this. Plus I must have left my phone on “vibrate”.’
Ash raises one eyebrow. ‘Kinky.’
I can’t help but make a face back at him. ‘It’s about the only pleasure I get nowadays.’
‘Well, if you’d have taken up that old woman on her offer . . . ’
‘As if.’
‘For the millionth time, it’s pronounced “Ash-eef ”.’
‘Very funny, Ash.’
‘So have you never, you know, done it with someone you’ve painted?’ he asks, walking over towards the window and wiping the condensation off one of the panes.
‘Of course.’
Ash looks round in surprise. ‘You have?’
‘Oh yes.’ I nod. ‘Because that’s what always happens. In porn movies.’
Ash looks a little disappointed. ‘So, no one new on the horizon?’
‘Nope. The women I meet nowadays don’t seem to think that “Ben Grant – struggling artist” is much of a catch. And to be honest, it’s getting to the stage that whenever I do meet someone, even if I can be bothered to ask them out on a date, there’s a part of me that’s hoping they won’t turn up.’
‘Why ever not?’
I sigh. ‘Because it’ll just be the same again. We’ll have a bit of fun, and then it’ll start to go bad, and it’s back to square one. And I’m getting a little tired of it all.’
‘Yes, well, perhaps you shouldn’t have made Amy dump you, then, should you?’
‘Let’s not go down that particular conversational road again, please.’ Amy and I split up about a month ago, and there’s hardly been a day since then that Ash hasn’t reminded me of the fact. ‘And, anyway, I didn’t make her dump me. The decision was mutual.’
‘Mutual?’ Ash laughs. ‘As in she decided to split up with you, and you had no choice but to agree.’
‘No, because it was the right thing to do. For both of us. She wanted a commitment out of me. And I wasn’t prepared to give her one.’
Ash nods slowly. ‘I can see why she dumped you, then.’
‘Get your mind out of the gutter, please. A commitment.’
‘Why not?’
I shrug. ‘She just wasn’t the one. There was no spark. No thunderbolt.’
‘No? So why can’t you stop thinking about her, then?’
‘I don’t think about her, really. Just . . . well, about us.’
Ash raises both eyebrows, and takes a step backwards. ‘Us?’
‘No. Our relationship, I mean. Amy and me. And why it went the way of all the others.’
Ash gives me a weary look. ‘Because you weren’t prepared to marry her?’
‘Yes, but why? She was my twenty-ninth girlfriend, you know. That’s one for every year of my life. You’d have thought I’d have learned something about relationships by now. At least enough to keep one going.’
‘But you can always go back to her, right? I mean, you said she was keeping that particular door open for you?’
I make a face. ‘Yes, but it wouldn’t simply be going back to her, would it? It’d mean giving all this up.’ I gesture around my sparsely furnished studio, trying to ignore the cracked panes of glass in the window. While I’ve always loved art, in actual fact, I trained as an accountant, and worked as one up until last year, at a medium-sized firm here in Margate, which was where I met Amy. But, recently, I’d begun to feel more than a little restless – in both my job and personal life – so six months ago I decided to leave, to try to make a go of it as a painter. Leaving Amy came a little bit later, but I can’t pretend the two were unrelated.
‘Amy said that, did she?’
‘Not in so many words. But I think she always assumed that my painting was just something I needed a little time off for. You know, to get it out of my system.’
‘Get it out of your system?’ Ash laughs. ‘What, like glandular fever?’
‘I’m serious, Ash. Accountancy wasn’t for me. And if Amy couldn’t see that . . . Well, that just proves that she wasn’t either.’
‘But she wanted to marry you, Ben.’
‘No, Ash. She wanted to marry the me I wasn’t happy being. There’s an important difference. And this . . . It’s always been my dream. And you’ve got to go for your dreams, haven’t you?’
He walks over to the painting I’ve been working on for most of the day and studies it for a moment or two. ‘Ben, your trouble is that you’re a perfectionist, who expects everything to meet your exacting standards,’ he says, picking it up and turning it through a hundred and eighty degrees, before placing it back on the easel. It’s an abstract, with one large blue rectangle next to a smaller, darker one, and I’m a little annoyed that it actually looks better that way up. ‘And if it doesn’t . . .’
‘You’re talking about my work, right?’
‘If you like.’ Ash grins at me, then picks the painting up again. ‘What’s it supposed to be, anyway?’
‘It’s a self-portrait.’
Ash squints at it. ‘Really?’
‘Of course not, Ash. It’s not supposed to be anything. It’s abstract.’
‘You’re telling me,’ he says, grimacing at the canvas.
I snatch it from him exasperatedly and place it against the wall, face-inwards. To be honest, I don’t sell many of these. It’s mainly the portrait work that Ash gets me that pays the bills – when it’s genuine portrait work, that is, rather than pervy old ladies who want to sit on me, rather than for me. And when the bills aren’t very big. ‘Anyway, as pleasant as this little artistic debate is, what was it you wanted to tell me?’
Ash thinks for a moment. ‘Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.’
I glance at my watch. It’s five-thirty, and although I’m due to be teaching my art class in an hour, the offer of a beer – and one I don’t have to pay for – is too good to turn down. ‘You’re on.’
‘Excellent,’ says Ash, as I follow him back down the stairs. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet. And we’ve just got time for a swift one before they arrive.’
I get a sudden feeling of déjà vu. ‘Don’t tell me – another potential “client” who wants me to show her more than my etchings?’
Ash smiles. ‘Well, you’re right about the “female” part.’
I stop on the bottom step, and lean
heavily against the bannister. Ash has tried to set me up on a number of occasions, none of which have worked out. Our tastes in women, like our tastes in art, are a little different. ‘This better not be another prospective ex.’
‘No,’ says Ash, pursing his lips enigmatically. ‘At least, I hope not.’
‘So why do I need a drink before I meet her?’
‘You don’t.’ Ash looks up at me nervously, before making for the front door. ‘But I do.’
Chapter 2
Five minutes later, I’m sitting at a table in The Cottage, the pub just around the corner from my studio. On the wall next to the bar, a large hand-written poster is appealing for people to sign up for the pub’s five-a-side football team, but seeing as they’ve decided to call themselves ‘The Cottagers’, not surprisingly, there’s not many takers.
‘Here you go.’ Ash puts a pint down on the table in front of me, then – and not for the first time – glances anxiously at the door. Given how nervous he’s looking, I’m starting to get a little worried about what he might be up to.
‘Checking your escape route?’
‘What? No.’ He looks at his watch, then gulps down a large mouthful of lager. ‘Listen, Ben, I’ve got something to tell you. Well, it’s more of an announcement, really.’
When Ash doesn’t continue, I put my beer down and study his face, wondering what it is he’s having so much trouble saying. He’s perspiring slightly, and it’s hardly hot in the pub, so either the brisk walk here took more out of him than normal, or he’s really worried about something. For a moment, I wonder whether the ‘woman’ thing was just a ruse to get me here, and he feels he needs to be in a public place – with witnesses – before he can say what he’s got to say. But what? I know he’s not gay, and from what I can tell, he’s not been having girlfriend problems – particularly since as far as I’m aware he hasn’t had a girlfriend for the best part of a year – which just leaves one thing. And it’s the thing closest to Ash’s heart. Money.
‘Hold on, Ash. I can guess what this is.’
He looks a little surprised. ‘You can?’
‘Your cut.’
