Game Over

by Adele Parks

  ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. Erm—’ He scrambles around for a recovery conversation. ‘Tell me about Josh.’

  I’m grateful that he’s let me off the hook and garble, ‘Josh is my only male, platonic friend. I’ve known him since we were kids. He has too much dirt on me to risk me falling out with him. He could sell to the press when I’m rich and famous.’

  ‘Is that your ambition, to be famous?’

  ‘Isn’t it everyone’s? Frankly I’m confident that Josh wouldn’t do that. Despite all odds, tantrums, time and the tenuous nature of platonic love, Josh and I adore each other. We trust each other and would never hurt one another.’ I pause and consider what I’ve just said. ‘Perhaps this is because of all the tantrums, time and the tenuous nature of platonic love.’ I grin at Darren. Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with embarrassment. Why am I saying this? I’m telling him about myself. I’m being truthful and straightforward. What has possessed me? I hate people knowing more about me than I know about them. I never do this. I try to hide the sudden intimacy in humour. ‘Besides which, I have an incriminating photo of him dressed in suspenders and a basque. He claims this was for a Rocky Horror Show party but I’m not convinced.’

  Darren laughs.

  The conversation is snappy, intense and truthful. I’m over-whelmed. Darren and I have finished a bottle of wine. We are, in fact, halfway through our second bottle. We drift from topic to topic. My clipboard detailed that he’s a tree surgeon, which apparently means that he is based at London University, where he has an office and a lab but he travels to, well, wherever there is a sick tree by the sound of it. This is at once strange – as it is so individual – and at the same time expected. It’s extremely fitting; I sort of imagine him working outdoors and with his hands. This connection throws me into confusion, as I have images of rolling around a park with him. I see myself picking leaves out of my hair and twigs from my ruffled clothes. Of course he has no idea what I’m thinking but the way he stares at me suggests that he is privy to my X-rated daydream. I struggle to think of anything suitable to say.

  ‘I’ve never known a tree surgeon.’

  He laughs again. I guess that isn’t my best line ever. I try another. ‘Fantastic view of the river from here, isn’t there?’

  ‘This is one of my favourite buildings in London, actually,’ agrees Darren.

  ‘Really.’ Bullseye.

  ‘Yeah, the view is amazing, as you said, and I like the brickwork.’

  ‘You said one of your favourite buildings. Which others do you like?’ As if I care.

  ‘My favourite, by some way, is the Natural History Museum, I like everything about it. How and why it was conceived. The structure, the brickwork, the lighting, the contents, the concept.’ How can anyone be this animated by a building full of stuff? Not even stuff you can buy.

  ‘What’s your favourite building?’ he asks.

  ‘I haven’t thought about it before. I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me.’ I consider it for a moment. ‘Bibendum. You know, the restaurant in South Kensington.’

  ‘Why?’

  I could tell him that I adore the stained-glass windows and the unusual tiling that François Espinasse designed in 1911, but I don’t want him to get the impression that I’m anything other than shallow.

  ‘It’s kind of a Golden Gate. It heralds the entrance to shop heaven – Joseph, Paul Smith and Conran. Besides which they sell fabulous oysters.’ I smile coolly and he laughs again.

  The evening flies by and I am keenly aware that I haven’t really talked about getting him to appear on the show. Which is careless of me – I rarely diversify from my agenda. I drag myself back to the point.

  ‘So why did you and Claire split up?’

  Frankly I’m confused. He’s clever, handsome and filthily sexy. I only have Marcus’s statement, which is an unreliable source. Marcus will have received a sanitized version of events from Claire, which he’ll have distorted in his head with neurotic paranoia. If I can get Darren to reveal the reason why he and Claire split up, I’ll be able to manipulate the facts to justify why he should go on the show.

  Besides which I’m interested.

  ‘We were a casualty of cohabitation.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What’s your phrase? Intimacy breeds revulsion. Well, in our case it certainly bred irritation. We liked one another, even loved one another well enough before we moved in together, and then it started. The rot set in.’

  ‘What, you started to take each other for granted? Became complacent?’

  ‘Nothing as dramatic. She didn’t like the way I kept film in the fridge. I hated the way her beauty product things seemed to be procreating all over the dressing table. She hated Sky Sport.’

  I gasp, shocked.

  ‘I loathe soaps.’

  I’m horrified. What that girl must have put up with.

  ‘I like to read in bed. She likes the light out immediately. And then it escalated. She began to hate my friends. I hated her hairs in the bath. She, my laugh. Me, her mother. I’d forgotten all this until I talked to Marcus earlier today. He said she was shopping. I knew that she’d be buying Easter eggs although it’s only January. Her organization was always horribly efficient. I hated it. There was no spontaneity. The truth is, we split up because we weren’t suited. We’re not together because it didn’t work and we shouldn’t be together. Why else do people ever split up? It’s so easy to look back on a past relationship and idealize it.’

  Thank God. This is the whole premiss of my programme.

  ‘I’ve never met anyone as right as Claire was for me but it still doesn’t alter the fact that she wasn’t 100 per cent right.’

  ‘90 per cent is pretty good.’

  ‘She wasn’t even that.’

  ‘85 per cent,’ I suggest.

  ‘Nearer 65 per cent.’ There is an unaccountable warm glow of delight in my stomach. He’s right, 65 per cent doesn’t sound like the One.

  If you believe in the One.

  Which I don’t.

  ‘So you are really over her?’ I’m disproportionately anxious to hear his reply. Which I hate myself for.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then what harm can there be in appearing on the show? Can’t you just tempt her and leave it at that?’

  Darren forces his mouth into a wry grin. Does he think I’m joking?

  ‘You just don’t get it, do you, Cas? Your show’s a travesty. Besides which, I loved her once. Why would I want to hurt her? I doubt she’d be tempted by me—’

  ‘I think she would,’ I interrupt enthusiastically.

  ‘Thank you.’ Darren’s face relaxes into the widest smile I’ve seen all evening. Ever, in fact.

  Arrogant bugger!

  ‘I didn’t mean it as a compliment,’ I mutter sulkily into my plate. Unperturbed, his smile widens an unfeasible fraction further.

  ‘I’ll take it as one anyway.’

  I scowl but try to appear unflustered by playing with the stem of my wine glass, caressing it as though it were a brand new pashmino. ‘Well, if you are convinced that Claire wouldn’t fall, the programme might be good for her and Marcus. We did have one couple, before Christmas, who managed to resist.’

  ‘Yes, I read about that. TV6 turned their wedding into a media frenzy,’ says Darren with obvious disgust. ‘That must have been marvellous for the ratings. Cas, haven’t you been listening to me? It’s not about whether she would want me or not. Any association with Sex with an Ex is contemptible. A need to “test” someone you should love exposes the fact that there is a problem with the relationship. I don’t want to embarrass Claire or anyone else for that matter. I don’t want her to know that her fiancé has this insecurity. I don’t want to drag up our past, not even to entertain your – what did you say? – 8.9 million viewers.’ I nod. ‘I loved her and that fact is still important and private.’

  He believes all this. I look at him, this six-foot-two specimen of pure sex, sitti
ng in front of me. I don’t understand him. He seems to be from another era. One that is perhaps a little more genteel. And trusting.

  And pointless.

  I try to think about my initial strategy.

  ‘Look, Darren, this show isn’t just about entertaining the general public. There are a lot of other serious issues hanging in the balance here.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘My job, the jobs of about thirty-five other people, advertising revenues.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Darren calls the waitress and asks for the bill. It’s time to go. I’m disappointed. The restaurant maybe empty but I don’t want to leave. I try to think of something else that will be damaged if the show doesn’t go ahead. There’s my ratings-related bonus. I don’t think it’s wise to mention this. I sigh, resigned. The quiet determined way he explains his views convinces me that he won’t change his mind tonight. I suppose it does sort of make sense in a horribly moral way. Never again will I attempt getting a thinking man on the show. I’ll stick to Neanderthals.

  We leave the restaurant and start to wander back to the tube, past the National Theatre, the Royal Festival Hall, the Hayward Gallery, the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Although it is January my shirt is sticking to my back with sweat. I hope I’m not coming down with flu. Couples are edging up to one another, the foolish myth of intimacy protecting them against the late-night chill that is settling. And it must be chilly because the people who are on their own pull their coats about them. My bag weighs a ton. It’s full of my life: notebooks, Dictaphones, research manuals, schedules. The weight of it drags my shoulder down to the right, causing me to lean. I occasionally bump into Darren. Each time I do so I tut so that he, at least, is clear that it’s an accidental collision and I don’t like it.

  My senses are on red alert. I can feel the cold night air not brushing my skin but laying icy hands on my forehead and shoulders. I hear a train rattle across Charing Cross bridge, splitting the night. Sparkly lights outline the bridges and pavements. An adult dot to dot. There is metal on my tongue. I can smell sweat, fresh and stuff that’s months old. The fresh twang is mingled with Darren’s aftershave. It rinses my nostrils. I tut at the dreamers hanging around the National Film Theatre, lost in nostalgia or stupefied with pointless hope.

  ‘Look at them,’ I spit. ‘Incapable of getting off their arses and doing something real.’

  Darren surprises me by laughing. ‘Is that all you see?’

  ‘Yes.’ I look at the jugglers and pseudo-intellectuals. People happier to watch plays about other people’s lives than actually live their own. ‘What else is there?’

  ‘Look again,’ he insists. He puts both hands on my shoulders and turns me to look at the crowds. ‘You have to look at everything from as many different angles as possible. In as many ways as possible. Look at it and try to see it differently.’

  I look again and see scores of people hanging out. Some are drinking coffee sold from the cafés at the theatres. Others are standing around the buskers. Others are debating with one another or chatting animatedly about the performance they have just seen. Others are snogging the face off each other. I shrug.

  ‘Don’t you see dozens of people having a good time, improving and enjoying themselves? A mass of humanity buzzing with just being here.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Again. Look closer,’ he insists.

  There is one old guy playing a violin. He’s ancient; he has a long, white beard. He is playing Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’. He skips lightly through the air, barely landing before rising again, his skinny limbs tapering in effortless rhythm. Grudgingly I throw some coins into his battered Panama. He is talented. He moves his head in a slight dip, more dignified than a bow. Darren smiles at me. I smile back.

  We cross over the river and reach Embankment tube station. It’s heaving. A burly mass of drunks in suits and drunks in rags. Distinguishable simply by their disposable incomes. Darren fights, through the morons and marauders, to the ticket machine. He buys our tickets. Mine for east London, his for south. We’re on separate lines and going in separate directions.

  ‘Will you be OK getting home?’

  ‘Fine. I’m a tube veteran.’ This is a lie. I usually catch a cab but if I say so I’ll have to explain why I’ve just walked half a mile to the tube station. Which I can’t explain, not even to myself.

  ‘Well, it’s been great to meet you, Cas. A very entertaining evening.’ Darren stops and turns to face me.

  ‘I bet you’ve hated every second.’

  ‘Not at all.’ He hesitates, then adds, ‘The reverse.’

  I smile broadly, relieved. ‘Well, goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’ Neither of us moves. Suddenly this feels very date-like. Will he kiss me? Is he going to shake my hand? He leans in and I think he’s going to kiss my cheek so I move my head suddenly. In fact, it appears his original target was my lips but my sudden manoeuvre means that his smacker ends up somewhere between my chin and earring. We jump apart and Darren heads towards the ticket barrier. It’s certain. He’s going to walk out of my life and back to his trees.

  And right now I can’t think of anything more soul-destroying.

  My reluctance over letting him go must be attributable to the amount of wine I’ve drunk. Isn’t it? God, I really fear it’s more than that.

  ‘Darren!’ My yell slices through the crowds and almost as though he’d been waiting, Darren responds immediately by turning and walking straight back to me. I usher him away from the tube-station crowds, back towards the river. I’m buying time as I formulate a plan.

  ‘At the very least I have to be seen to have done everything in my power to persuade you to come on the show.’

  ‘You have,’ he assures.

  ‘Not everything.’

  Darren looks a bit shocked. ‘Are you going to—’

  I read his mind. ‘No. Not that,’ I interrupt, understanding at once that he thinks I am going to offer to have sex with him. I’m unaccountably insulted. Darren blushes.

  ‘That’s a relief.’ Then he blushes again. ‘Not that I wouldn’t want to, but the circumstances are—’

  I help us both out by interrupting him. Before I’ve even thought about what I’m going to say, or why I’m saying it, or the consequences of opening my mouth at all, habitual bullshitting kicks in.

  ‘No, my proposition is of a different nature. I’d like to be given the chance to present my side of the story. To do that I’d need to spend some time with you. I’d need to shadow you for a day or so.’ It’s a gamble but I’m a player. He looks at me doubtfully.

  ‘You won’t change my mind.’

  ‘Maybe not, but at least give me the opportunity to appear to have done my best. It will save my bacon with the guys at TV6.’

  This isn’t true. In fact, what I should do now is return to the studio and help Fi recruit a replacement scenario.

  But after spending the evening with him I know that if he were to appear on Sex with an Ex, it would be the best show ever. He’s delicious-looking, articulate, sexy and moral. If I could publicize his objections and how we overcame them, the entire country would support Sex with an Ex. There have been some objections to the show. Few and far between, and in my opinion mostly hypocritical. But those who are squeamish about weddings collapsing like stacked cards would surely throw their lot in with TV6 if someone like Darren has. Who could resist Darren? And although I can’t be sure that he will be persuaded I’ve got to give it my best shot.

  I begin to mentally rearrange my schedule and calculate how much Fi will be able to handle on her own if I’m not in the studio. At the same time that I’m making these hurried calculations, trying to predict scenarios, outcomes and consequences, Darren is leisurely weighing up the proposition, which he has taken at face value.

  ‘I was taking the week off work, expecting to be on the show. Now I’m planning on going to see my parents and family.’ With something near reluctance, he sighs, ‘You won’t change my mind but if it h
elps you out with your bosses, you can join me for a couple of days.’

  ‘Great.’ I smile. Agreeing before I know whether I mean it. ‘So where do your parents live?’

  ‘Whitby.’

  ‘Where?’

  He laughs, ‘Whitby, you know, in North Yorkshire.’ No, I don’t know. It sounds a long way off. It sounds a different and uncivilized world. But the show must go on. How bad can it be? I nod and try to appear informed without committing myself.

  ‘OK, Cas, I’m happy for you to shadow me, if that’s the official term, but I think we’d both have a better time if you started to trust me and enjoy yourself.’

  I’m not here to enjoy myself and I don’t do trust. I bite my tongue and resist pointing out either of these pertinent facts.

  ‘Trust simply leads to disappointment,’ I state frankly.

  ‘Listen to yourself, Cas. You are not convincing anyone with this super-hard bitch act.’

  He is very wrong. I’ve convinced eight primary school teachers, twelve senior school teachers, dozens of fellow students, scores of colleges, numerous girlfriends, exactly fifty-three lovers and my mother. Even Issie, painful as it is for her, admits from time to time, ‘You can be so callous.’ What is this obsession with being soft? Isn’t it obviously asking for trouble? Asking to end up hurt, abused, alone? I like being impenetrable. I don’t want to be discovered.

  Darren pauses and stares out at the river. It’s twinkling, which surprises me. I always think of the Thames as a rest point for crap and sanitary towels.

  ‘You know what I think?’

  ‘No, bowl me over,’ I sigh.

  ‘You just want to be discovered. You want someone to make the effort and scratch the surface. You want to be loved. You just want to make it difficult. A modern-day Agamemnon challenge. You are the same as every woman I’ve ever met.’

  I didn’t realize Darren could be so insulting.

  I look at him and he is gorgeous. The streetlights are reflected in the river. The reflection bounces up to illuminate Darren. He looks like an angel. He smiles and he’s mucky sexy. He looks like a devil. I’ve never come across anything so complex and compelling in my entire life. I realize that it’s going to be more important than ever, and quite possibly harder than ever, to keep up my super-hard bitch act. And whilst my mind is resolving that I won’t let my guard slip for a second, I hear my disloyal tongue say, ‘Oh bugger it. Go on then, show me a good time. I don’t suppose you’ll be able to.’ I grin my challenge. But even I don’t believe me.