by Jenny Colgan
‘And you’re a laird!’ I added, helpfully.
‘Yes, right, yes. Anyway, can I give her a message?’
‘Ooooh … no message, actually. Just phoned for a girlie chat.’
‘Right. OK. Bye.’
I often had romantic dreams of what it would be like to bump into an old crush from the past, when their eyes would be opened and they would see me anew: suave, sophisticated and thrillingly desirable. Although played out in a variety of exotic locales, the two things the fantasies had in common were that they normally included the crushee remembering who I was, and then giving a shit. Me, and my hair, were starting to flop.
Stuff it. I was going back to basics. I called my mum. I owed her a call. Well, about nine, actually. My mum was sweet – really sweet; I mean, she bakes – but definitely a traditionalist in every sense of the word. She had looked like Miriam Margolyes since even Miriam Margolyes hadn’t looked like Miriam Margolyes. I was convinced that really she was only about forty and deeply frivolous but put an old mum costume on every day and got the rolling pin out. It was the only way to explain me, anyway.
‘Hi, Mum. How are you?’
‘Melanie, I’ve just this second been talking about you.’
Given that talking about me and Stephen, my elder brother, was my mother’s favourite thing after baking, this wasn’t surprising. Other non-surprising things she could have been doing: watching television, playing bridge, talking non-stop to my father, who could only grunt. I seldom spoke to him on the phone, as the grunts couldn’t be accompanied by comprehensible gestures (macaroni cheese; beer; remote control – really, my dad’s Homer Simpson without the deep self-awareness) and was therefore pointless.
‘Is it true what I hear – that Amanda Phillips is getting married to that nice young man you brought home?’
‘Yes. Oh, and Alex is coming back.’
‘Well, he was a lovely boy. Scottish, wasn’t he? Such a nice smile. And so well behaved.’
‘He’s not four,’ I said crossly. ‘He doesn’t have to be well behaved. Anyway, Alex is coming back.’
‘… it’s sure to be a big wedding – that family never do things by halves. You should see the new swimming-pool extension Derek’s put on the manor house. Of course, I haven’t seen it, but apparently it’s nearly as big as the house!’
‘That sounds great. Anyway, Alex is coming back.’
‘Are you going to be a bridesmaid? Maybe there’ll be more polite Scottish boys there and you could meet a nice one.’
My mother didn’t mince her words.
‘I’m not going to be a bridesmaid. I might not even get invited. But I’m at the airport …’
‘Of course you’ll get invited. Great little friends at school, you three were. How is Fran? Met a nice man yet?’
‘No. But …’
‘Well, maybe the both of you can go to the wedding and get lucky this time. OK, darling, have to go, I’ve got bath buns on the go, and you know their temperementiality. Speak to you soon. Bye, darling.’
It drove me mad when my mum used the word temperementiality. It wasn’t even nearly a real word. She did it to annoy me. Perhaps, I thought, musing on the conversation, she did everything to annoy me. That would explain a lot.
One of the cleaners, whom I’d noticed earlier for some reason, came past and caught my eye. He stared at me, a tad suspiciously, I thought. I wanted to run up to him and explain that, yes, I did have a home; no, I wasn’t a terrorist (though I’d be strangely flattered if he thought so), but really I was choosing to be here to make some friendly phone calls, shop for consumer goods and WAIT FOR SOMEONE WHO LOVED ME, DAMN IT! So I grinned ingratiatingly. I checked the ongoing ladder in my tights. Shit. Where on earth was I going to find a pair of tights in an airport shopping mall?
Another three hours and I’d thought ‘stuff it’ and done the whole credit-card thing. I was top-to-toe coiffed: hair, Clinique lipstick, new top, poncey pants, hold-ups (the nineties girl’s compromise, as far as I was concerned) and, sadly, the same old flat shoes, as even I couldn’t bring myself to go that far. Unfortunately, the perfume ladies didn’t see the shoes in time, checked out the posh togs and did a mass ambush on me, so I smelled like a tarts’ annual general meeting.’
Another two hours and I had managed to spend more than the clothes’ total on coffee and nasty Danishes, and I was sitting uncomfortably, staring out of the window and reading ‘What your man really means when he shags all your mates and has started to look at the dog – is this how the new soft new lad has to express himself?’ I was ready to a) kill myself; b) go play in the arcades; c) buy the damned shoes. I’d been tempted to try and make friends with the cleaner, but he’d wandered off shift, still staring at me and shaking his head.
So I bought the shoes. Then I went and played in the arcades.
Five hundred years later, it seemed a reasonable time to start going to meet planes. I bought a toothbrush and toothpaste, and prepared myself.
Four New York planes later, and my fixed smile was starting to look a bit desperate. How did travel reps do it? Must be the drugs.
I started to think that maybe I’d missed him. Maybe he’d disembarked already and was on his way somewhere – he’d phoned one of his mates and been whooshed off in a taxi to some expensive postcode. Maybe he’d walked past while I was looking at the girl carrying the enormous stuffed elephant. Maybe when all that bloody coffee made me go to the loo again. Oh Christ. More than a whole day in an airport for absolutely nothing.
My anxiety levels were reaching their peak and I was about to put a call out for him over the intercom so I could at least attempt to head him off, when, at last, at last, at last, he loped out of the by now extremely familiar automatic doors.
My stomach hit the floor. He looked gorgeous. I arranged my face into a suitably affectionate, wry look and pointed myself in his general direction. He didn’t see me (it must have been the hairdo), so I ended up having to run after him in my new super-sexy high-heeled shoes and attack him from behind like a mugger.
He jumped round as if he was about to kung-fu me, then gradually took it in.
‘Mel!’
I was out of breath from running and out of breath from seeing him.
‘Heh … heh … Alex!’
He gathered me up in his strong arms and gave me a huge movie-star bear hug. I wished the cleaner was still around to see.
‘You … you complete and utter fuckhead,’ I choked.
He buried his face in my hair.
‘God, I missed you.’
Three
All the way back on the tube we yabbered and yabbered, genuinely thrilled to see each other again. He told me about his trip across America: the larks he got up to in New York; the English pop-star he bumped into in a deserted part of Montana and what great mates they became; his awful jobs and the amazing characters he’d met. His voice had taken on a new American tinge. I didn’t mention the fact that I hadn’t changed jobs, or flats, or, despite appearances, got it together at all since he went away, instead embroidering wildly the love lives of several mutual acquaintances, some boring parties and a hilarious imaginary cat of Fran’s (I was getting desperate by that stage). Neither of us mentioned the inauspicity of his leaving; it was as if he’d simply been away, perhaps on business, perhaps for a fortnight, perhaps in prison.
We turned up at home at half past midnight. The flat was ominously quiet, which meant that Linda was wide awake, listening to our every move. However, it was a special occasion, so I pinched her bottle of vodka anyway, called in sick with a midnight vomiting fit (unpleasant but effective), and fell into bed with my big – OK, slightly smelly – darling, who managed to make me buzz all over before passing out for fourteen hours.
The following day I watched him sleep, and the time just drifted by. Maybe they should put beautiful sleeping males in airport waiting rooms.
He woke up dazed, stared at the ceiling for a second, then rolled over and grabbed me wit
h a grin.
‘Oh, Mel, darling. I will be yours for ever …’
This was more like it.
‘… if you’d make me a bacon sandwich. Two bacon sandwiches. And some fried eggs. I am starving.’
‘That’, he said twenty minutes later, after I’d emptied the fridge of Linda’s food, ‘was the best bacon sandwich I have ever had. Americans just cannot make a bacon sandwich. They put it in brown bread and cover it in crap.’
‘What, like vegetables?’
‘Yeah!’
‘You’re right – bloody Americans and their healthy eating! That’s why they’re all in such fantastic physical shape.’
He giggled, then took my face in his hands. Here it came.
‘Gee, Mel, it’s good to be back. Americans … they never mean what they say. I never feel I can talk bullshit with anyone as much as I can with you.’
‘I think that’s possibly the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,’ I said gravely.
He laughed, and ruffled my hair.
‘I mean … I behaved like a complete dork, Mel. I’m sorry. I really am. What I did to you, it really bit. You know, I had no idea what I was doing. With all my parents and stuff … I can find it really hard to open up … and I got scared. I was so worried you were going to … just ignore me. Which I would probably have deserved.’
‘Yes, you would.’
‘You’re special to me, you know.’
‘I do know. And if you ever EVER do anything like that again, I’m going to impale a testicle on each arm of a pair of scissors and start snipping.’
He winced. ‘Is that nice?’
‘You’ll see.’
And that was it. I was very happy.
The next week passed in a blur – a dirty-sheeted, stupid, giggling, New York-time blur. I finally got it together to go into work, but was so glowing and smiley that I got away with more murder than usual. Even the secretaries couldn’t hurt me. No one in the world had ever been as happy as us, ever, and in fact could have no idea what it was like. I floated around, occasionally stopping to pity people for not being as happy as me.
At home, I stopped answering the phone and made Linda do it, which was mean of me as she hated doing it and my friends hated speaking to her. Fran eventually stomped round in a fury, having gleaned, accurately, that things weren’t exactly going the way she’d planned. This surmise was confirmed when she came to the door and Alex opened it, clearly in possession of both kneecaps.
‘Hey there, Fran,’ he said winningly. ‘Good to see you again.’
I wondered what she was going to do. For a moment she looked as if she would completely ignore him, then she shook her mane of hair and smiled.
‘Hello! Great to see you – you complete bastard! How nice!’ she said, walking straight past him to kiss me on the cheek.
Alex grimaced at me, but I shrugged. Even if I hadn’t been able to give him a hard time for what he’d done, I had no objections to Fran doing it.
I put the kettle on. From the other room I could hear Fran’s trained voice, devastatingly polite.
‘So, did you stay in lots of interesting places … cocksucker?’
‘Well, yeah,’ Alex stammered. ‘Yeah, I moved around a bit, saw a few states. Bumming around, mostly.’
‘Really? How unusual … for such a rampant arsehole.’
‘MEL!’ shouted Alex, coming through to the kitchen. ‘How long do I have to put up with this?’
‘As long as it takes … buttcheeks.’
‘Buttcheeks? That’s complimentary, surely?’
I blushed. ‘Shut up and take in this tea. And try and make it up to Fran.’
‘I didn’t do anything to Fran.’
‘What, you want to get on her bad side? Be nice.’
He sighed, hung his head, and we carried in the tea.
‘I like knobchop’s new fake accent,’ Fran said to me. ‘Do you remember when he came back from Goa? He talked about his karma all the time and wanted to be a hippie. Gosh, wasn’t it jolly funny! What a wankfox!’ And she laughed a tinkly little Amanda laugh.
‘Fran, give me a break!’ said Alex. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, goddamnit.’
‘Gimme a break! Ah’m sawry, gawdamnit.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, stop it!’
‘Stawp it!’
‘OK, OK, OK.’ He got up and made to leave the room.
Fran wasn’t finished. ‘So what are your plans now, worthless anal wart?’
He looked at me and then at the floor.
‘To make it up to Melanie and never leave abruptly again and be a good human being and find a good job and become respectable, SUH!’
Fran nodded slowly, winked at me, and smiled at Alex, who gradually sat down again. Then she launched into filling us in on the gossip. It looked like things were going to be OK.
And they were. Alex and I swanned about London, doing all the things we normally couldn’t be bothered with, like Art and Culture, for example. I cooked us fabulous meals, to which I politely asked Linda. However, she didn’t seem to fancy them. She’d had another big parcel, anyway, and stayed in her room a lot, not really giving me a chance to thank her for doing the washing-up.
Alex did have some plans. This pop-star bloke was apparently lined up to get him some work here in the record business, so it was all going to be cool and he might even try and get a band together. I nodded supportively … For the moment, I was simply happy to keep playing Hide the Trousers and didn’t really care.
Eventually, I phoned Amanda back about the party. OK, I was happy, but it didn’t stop me feeling an urge to get a gloat in, given half a chance.
‘Darling, hi. I’ve just got a call on the other line – give me a second.’
Crap. This meant she must already have heard and had gone into defensive mode, which meant I wouldn’t have the satisfaction of relaying the news.
‘There,’ she said, ‘now what’s all this about Alex? I couldn’t believe it when I heard. Really, Melanie, haven’t you ever thought of playing hard to get?’
Every time.
‘No, it’s great,’ I said. ‘We’re really … happy to be back together, get everything sorted out, you know. We worked out we wanted to be together.’
‘Oh!’ she squealed. ‘Tell me you’re going to get married too! We could have a joint celebration.’
She knew damn well I wasn’t.
‘No, of course not. That’s for grown-ups. Which reminds me, we’re coming to your do on Saturday night.’
‘OK … well, Alex will know everyone, I suppose. You know it’s black tie?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘OK, darling. Well, improvise as best you can. Must dash! We’ve got a Teletubby stuck in a lift! Bye, darling!’
By the following Saturday, I knew for a fact that everything was all right with the world and I was ready to hit Amanda’s engagement do. I had it all worked out. No doubt there’d be a lot of nudging. Someone might even say, ‘Hey, it’ll be you two next!’ and I’d blush modestly and do a shy smile, and Alex would look at me tenderly and say, ‘Well, you never know … maybe one day, if I’m lucky!’ and that’d get all round the party and I’d be the queen! By the time my imagination had supplied a huge circular staircase down which we could descend to mass applause, I had to pretend to be Fran and tell myself not to be so silly. But, oh – look how wonderfully compatible we were! We hadn’t fallen out once, all week. He’d grovelled, he’d done his bit. He was home again, he was beautiful, and he was mine. Everything was brilliant.
Amanda’s party turned out to be a pretty swish affair. Fortunately, what with all the shagging and healthy gourmet meals, I could get into last year’s grey silk frock. And if I kept my right-hand side to the wall, the wine stain scarcely showed. Alex had shoved on his usual T-shirt and jeans, but looked gorgeous anyway.
I’d begged Fran to come, but she’d absolutely declined, on the grounds that I would be snogging Alex all night and everyone else would be horri
ble.
The party was in an exclusive club on the Thames: all noisy gravel and ginormous bouquets of unnaturallooking yellow flowers clustered around a bunch of braying men and sharp-lipsticked women. Everyone was taller than me and knew everyone else, and before I was two steps through the door, my carefully groomed confidence started to plummet, until once again I was Melanie Pepper, unruly loudmouth of 2C, worrying about puppy fat and what would happen if George Michael didn’t want to marry me after all. (Well, who knew?)
This was definitely not my race, this mob of anorexic, complacent, poshtastic freeloaders. I caught sight of myself in the enormous gold-tinted mirror opposite, surrounded by the glitterprati. I looked like I was wearing my mother’s shoes, en route to the dentist.
I turned round for the consolation of having the handsomest man in the room on my arm. But my heart sank again. How could I forget? Alex’s hair flopped! He went skiing! His parents couldn’t remember his first name! He was One of Them! Even before I had grabbed my first free glass of champers (Don’t grab, Mel! You have a right to be here, remember?), he was practically being mobbed.
‘Al! Al, darling! Where have you been?’
‘Alex! Sara said she bumped into you in LA – had a few fantastic days, I hear?’
‘Oh, come over and see Benedict and Claire – we haven’t seen you since the pool party!’
I too had been at the pool party, having a thoroughly miserable time. I too hadn’t seen any of these poncey poseurs since then. I pretended to look politely interested and waited for Alex to re-introduce me.
‘Guys, you remember Melanie, don’t you?’
A blonde horse glanced at me cursorily, and I wished – for God’s sake! – that my name was a little less common.
There was a short pause in the conversation as they gave me simpering nob smiles and enquiring looks, then they fell back into loud guffaws as Alex recounted his adventures yet again, cast me one apologetic glance, then hurled himself into dissecting the rugby season and knocking back the ’poo.
