The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook

by Matt Dunn

  ‘Dan, is all your conversation like a television link?’

  ‘Want to come?’

  I pick a ladle up out of Dan’s unused utensil jar and attempt to swing it, nearly denting the stainless-steel fridge door in the process. ‘I don’t know the first thing about golf.’

  Dan snatches the ladle back. ‘Easy, Tiger. Well come along and watch me, then. You might learn a thing or two.’

  I sit flicking through a couple of magazines in the lounge while Dan gets ready. When he eventually appears, he’s dressed as if he’s about to contest the Open.

  ‘Look at you, mister all-the-gear-but-no-idea. I thought you were only going to the driving range?’

  He shrugs. ‘Got to look the part, Eddy-boy. That’s half the battle. As you’ll find out in a couple of weeks.’

  Dan removes his clubs from the cupboard under the stairs and we head outside and into his car. I jump into the passenger seat, only to have Dan dump the bag on my lap.

  ‘What’s wrong with the boot?’

  ‘Don’t fit, I’m afraid. They’ll have to ride up front with you.’

  ‘Practical, these cars, then?’

  As it’s not raining, Dan lowers the roof, and we head off towards the range. On the way, we pass Wendy, who’s heading in to work.

  ‘Oh look,’ she calls, as we slow down and beep her. ‘It’s Thelma and Louise.’

  When we get to the range, Dan buys a bucket of balls, and I sit there as he thwacks them effortlessly into the distance.

  ‘So, what am I learning here, exactly?’ I ask, stifling a yawn.

  ‘Well, here’s how I see it,’ says Dan, fishing a ball out of his bucket and placing it on the mat in front of him. ‘Women are like golf balls, really.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, you tee them up, address them carefully, and then, if you make a good enough connection…’

  I can hardly wait. ‘Ye-es?’

  Dan grins. ‘In the hole!’ he shouts.

  Wednesday 6th April

  9.33 a.m.

  I’m back in the office. This isn’t as wimpy as it may seem, even though I had started to panic a little that my not having a job might not sit too favourably with Jane’s request for me to ‘sort some things out’. But for the last few days Natasha’s been leaving me messages everywhere, telling me how sorry she is, that she’s been doing a lot of thinking, how what I said was right, and that things would definitely change.

  And although I’ve heard this all before from her, something has changed. I can sense it. She’s in the office more, there’s a new respect in the way she speaks to me, and she’s invited me to her fortieth birthday party next week, dropping hints about some announcement that she’s going to make. She’s even been bringing me coffee.

  And yet I find it more than a little ironic that for all these years, every time I’ve threatened to leave, not much has actually come of it. It’s only now that I’ve actually walked out of the door that it’s made a difference.

  Thursday 7th April

  7.35 a.m.

  I’m in the gym with Sam, surprising myself that I’m managing to work out and talk at the same time, and telling her about the amazing difference in Natasha.

  ‘She’s even invited me to a party next Thursday,’ I say, in between repetitions on the leg press. ‘At her house.’

  ‘Are you going to go?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘It’s one of those posh affairs: marquee, champagne, band, and all that. Not really my scene.’

  ‘What?’ says Sam. ‘That sounds lovely.’

  ‘Maybe. But…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Well, I’d feel a bit silly going on my own.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Sam suddenly looks awkwardly at her feet, and it takes me a good few seconds to realize why.

  ‘Oh no, I didn’t mean…I wasn’t suggesting…I mean, if you want to…But don’t feel…’ I shut my mouth, feeling rather uncomfortable myself now.

  ‘Edward, that’s very sweet of you, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying. But I’d better not, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, no. Of course,’ I stammer, not sure quite what line I’ve crossed, but pretty sure that I’ve crossed one.

  We work out in silence for a few moments, before Sam regains her composure.

  ‘So tell me. What made you finally stand up to Natasha?’ she asks.

  ‘I was just fed up of being told what to do all the time. And by a woman.’

  ‘Well, good for you,’ says Sam. ‘Now ten more. And then on to the bench press.’

  6.05 p.m.

  We’re due a progress meeting, so I head round to find Dan at his flat, munching through a pizza while watching a recording of You’ve Been Framed. He’s laughing so much I fear he’s going to have a seizure, and for some reason, he’s still wearing his sunglasses.

  ‘Aren’t you taking this celebrity thing a bit far? Why not just park your stretch limo outside and be done with it?’

  Dan makes a face. ‘I wish.’

  ‘Well take those ridiculous glasses off then.’

  Reluctantly, Dan reaches up to remove his shades, revealing a corker of a black eye.

  ‘Blimey. What happened to you?’

  ‘We were filming this new idea for a pilot this lunchtime.’

  ‘New show? You didn’t mention any new show. What was it called, “Punch me in the face”?’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s right up your street actually. You know all these makeover shows?’

  ‘Thanks. Yeah?’

  ‘Well, this is a new one for men. It’s called You Look Ridiculous! I’ve based it on an idea I’ve had recently.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Well, what we do is go to a town centre and find badly dressed men on the street. You know—either those total slobs like you used to be, or people who are complete fashion victims.’

  ‘And?’

  Dan takes a bite of pizza. ‘And so I march up to them, microphone in hand, and ask them three basic questions on fashion and styling. If they fail to get any of them right, they win a free makeover.’

  ‘So, what happened? And why the black eye?’

  ‘Well, it seems we hadn’t quite thought it through.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It’s lunchtime, and me and Mike, my cameraman…’

  ‘Are you sure he wasn’t your sound man, with a name like that?’

  ‘Are hanging around Churchill Square, and we spot this bloke. Big fella, dressed like an arse.’

  ‘What a wonderful mental picture that is.’

  ‘And so we decide to try it out. Mike starts filming, I walk up to the guy, and say the programme’s catch phrase…’

  ‘Which wouldn’t be “You Look Ridiculous” by any chance?’

  ‘Exactly. Well, too late I smell the alcohol on his breath. He’s obviously spent the best part of the morning in the pub, and doesn’t take too kindly to my observation, and before I can explain what the show’s all about…’

  ‘Ah.’

  Dan grimaces. ‘Yeah, but you should see poor old Mike. He won’t want to look through that lens again in a hurry.’

  I’m about to ask him for more details, but he’s suddenly distracted by a video clip of someone tripping over while carrying a birthday cake. They, of course, land with their face in it, which Dan finds hilarious.

  ‘What’s so funny about this?’ I ask him, once the adverts thankfully come on. ‘The fact that they film things like painting the fence, or climbing into the loft. How sad are they?’

  ‘Don’t be so snooty,’ says Dan, fast-forwarding through the ad break. ‘We’re doing ours on Monday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re spending the day filming out-takes.’

  ‘On purpose?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Got to have something to submit to the “bloopers” programmes.’

  ‘Am I missing something? Aren’t they supposed to be “mistakes”.’

&nbs
p; Dan looks at me as if I’m stupid. ‘Yeah, like Trevor Whatsisname doesn’t know the camera’s still rolling when he says “fuck” on the news.’

  ‘But why would they…?’

  ‘Repeat fees. People only watch Richard and Judy once, but they’ll watch Judy “accidentally” getting her baps out on that awards show time and time again. Oldest trick in the book. Anyway, we’re not here to discuss the intricacies of the broadcasting world.’ Dan hits ‘stop’ on the remote control, switches the TV off, and fires up his laptop. ‘Where are we at now?’

  ‘Well, I’m supposed to be going speed dating again this Saturday.’

  ‘What do you mean, “supposed to be”?’

  ‘It’s just that…’

  ‘Edward. What better way to find out whether all this work has paid off than to put yourself through that again. A random sample of twenty women, don’t forget.’

  ‘Okay,’ I sigh. ‘So is there anything else we need to do before then?’

  As the spreadsheet appears on screen, Dan scrolls through the list, which miraculously seems to be getting shorter, crossing items off as he goes.

  ‘Hold on,’ he says. ‘Something just occurred to me that we’ve forgotten.’ He pages up to the middle and adds one word under ‘H’.

  ‘Hair? What’s wrong with it?’ I run my hand nervously through my shaggy brown mop.

  ‘Well, have you ever thought about having it in a style?’

  ‘Bugger off.’

  ‘I’m serious. Who cuts it for you?’

  I name a semi-trendy place on Western Road, and Dan frowns slightly. ‘But I know the head stylist there. He’s normally pretty good.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s also normally pretty expensive.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I normally don’t get him to do it. It’s much cheaper when you have it done by one of the students.’

  Dan inspects my head. ‘What are they students of? Philosophy?’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘But, joking aside,’ he says, ‘it’s almost unkempt enough to be trendy, but I think you ought to go for something a little more…’ he searches for the right word, ‘modern.’

  I sigh. ‘And I bet you know just the place?’

  Dan nods and takes a last bite of pepperoni. ‘Oh yes,’ he says, reaching for his mobile phone.

  Friday 8th April

  5.25 p.m.

  My appointment is at five-thirty, so I nip out of work a few minutes early and make my way to the salon, which is ominously next to a hat shop. ‘Just ask for Michelle,’ Dan had advised.

  Michelle turns out to be the best-looking transsexual I’ve ever seen. A tall, willowy blonde, her huge breasts barely restrained by her T-shirt, she’s quite breathtaking. Literally, when I see how much she charges for a haircut.

  ‘Trust me, honey,’ she says, in a voice several octaves lower than mine. ‘I’m worth it.’

  I’m shepherded through into the consultation room, where a large plasma-screen television on the wall in front of me is showing some sort of fashion TV, and offered a glass of wine, which I gulp down quickly.

  Michelle sidles up behind me, studies my reflection in the mirror, then lays a hand on my shoulder; her fingernails would put a velociraptor to shame.

  ‘How can I do you?’

  I swallow hard. ‘Dan sent me. He said…’

  ‘Dan? How is that sweetheart? Such lovely hair.’

  Great. Yet another member of the Dan Davis fan club. ‘He’s fine. Still battling with the drugs, though.’

  ‘Dan? Drugs? Surely not.’

  I nod. ‘I’m afraid so. But I can’t really say any more than that. Anyway, he told me I should ask you to, er…’

  Michelle raises one carefully plucked eyebrow. ‘Ye-es?’

  ‘To make me a “babe magnet”.’

  Michelle lets out a deep belly-laugh. ‘I can only work with what I’m given, you understand. But I think you have potential.’

  The next hour is a blur of washing, shampooing, cutting, shaving, and drying. All the while I try not to flinch when Michelle presses her surgically produced breasts against me, which seems to be more often than strictly necessary, and I watch with alarm as a worrying amount of hair seems to be falling on my shoulders and the floor around me. Finally, when it seems that there’s almost no more left to cut, Michelle produces a pot of something that seems to be called ‘Fudge’, and scoops out a handful.

  She spins me round with one firmly biceped arm so I’m not facing the mirror, straddles me, and after a bit of teasing and shaping, spins me back again so I can see my reflection.

  ‘Voila!’ announces Michelle. ‘You like?’

  I’m a bit speechless. I hardly recognize the person staring back at me. ‘I like,’ I say, eventually. And I do like. She’s worked a miracle, and it’s of the Moses/Red Sea magnitude. Gone is the lank, shapeless side parting that I once had, to be replaced by a short, spiky, messy, dare I even say, trendy cut. It might not be babe magnet, but at least it won’t repel them any more.

  I spend the whole walk home admiring myself in shop windows, so much so that at one point I walk into a bollard, banging my right knee painfully. But it’s worth it, despite the fifty-pound price tag, the five-pound tip and the further ten pounds I spent on that magic Fudge stuff.

  The next morning, although I can’t quite achieve the effect with the Fudge that Michelle’s fingers did, I’d still get a decent score if this were a Generation Game test. And that’s what all this whole thing is all about, as I’m beginning to understand.

  Getting a decent score.

  Saturday 9th April

  10.02 a.m.

  I’m in my bedroom with Dan, going through the entire contents of my wardrobe. There’s a pile of clothes in front of me made up of stuff that I’m keeping, and next to it, a pile of items that I’m throwing away because they either don’t fit me any more or, to borrow Dan’s latest catchphrase, ‘look ridiculous’. Suffice to say, the second pile is somewhat larger than the first, and not, apparently, because they don’t fit me any more. After nearly an hour of this, I’m getting extremely bored.

  ‘Dan—this just isn’t me. I don’t want to spend my day agonizing over whether it’s all right to wear navy with green, for example.’

  He looks at me earnestly. ‘Edward, it’s no good working on the chassis if the paintwork lets you down. You’ve got three minutes to make a good impression, and turning up tonight like some reject from the Oxfam shop is hardly going to help. Come on.’

  ‘Where are we going now?’

  ‘I need to take you shopping.’

  11.15 a.m.

  On the way into town, Dan calls into his flat, and emerges holding his digital camera.

  ‘What on earth is that for?’

  He slips it into his pocket. ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’

  ‘We’ve got to get you the basics. Mix and match. So even you can’t make a mistake. Try and put together a wardrobe where whatever top you choose will go with whichever pair of trousers you put your hands on. Kind of trendy dressing for idiots.’

  We head on into the North Laines, and soon the surroundings start to make me feel a little uncomfortable, not because they’re particularly threatening or dangerous, but because everyone’s so damn trendy. People I’m guessing must be my age look years younger than me, and I realize it’s because of the way they dress. But as we walk, I gaze through the various shop windows in bewilderment—from what I can tell, most of them seem to be selling fancy dress.

  On a road where all the shops are named ‘Street’ this or ‘Urban’ that, we eventually find the place Dan’s looking for. It’s called ‘Kred’, and as we enter, we’re greeted by someone who could be Dan’s twin brother. They’ve got the same trendily unkempt hairstyle, the scruffy bagginess about their clothing that strangely seems to be so smart, and when they shake hands, it’s more like a game of scissors-paper-stone tha
n any handshake I’ve ever seen.

  Dan puts his hands on my shoulders and ushers me forward, as if he’s presenting me for inspection. ‘Milo, I’d like you to meet Edward.’

  Milo holds out his hand and, not knowing the correct routine, I just give him the ‘thumbs up’ sign, as Dan cringes with shame beside me.

  ‘Milo,’ continues Dan, ‘Edward needs your help.’

  ‘I can see that,’ says Milo, looking me up and down. ‘What’s the occasion?’

  ‘Life,’ says Dan. ‘He needs to make a good impression.’

  ‘Better to not turn up,’ laughs Milo. ‘Or to send you in his place.’

  I clear my throat loudly. ‘Don’t mind me.’

  Dan and Milo continue to talk about me as if I’m not there and, quite frankly, I’d rather not be. I consider just heading for the door, but then catch sight of my reflection in the full-length mirror—the comparison between my jeans-and-sweatshirt combination and how Dan and Milo look keeps me rooted firmly to the spot.

  After another few minutes of discussion, Milo sizes me up expertly, and produces a pair of jeans and a shirt from the rack.

  ‘Try these,’ he says, showing me into the changing rooms at the back of the shop. I do as instructed, and walk out of the cubicle to find Dan sitting in an armchair, enjoying a glass of wine.

  ‘Much better,’ says Milo, un-tucking my shirt for me. ‘The clothes make the man.’

  Dan looks up at me and swallows his mouthful of Chardonnay. ‘In the absence of anything else, lets hope so,’ he says.

  Milo selects a range of trousers, T-shirts, and jumpers, and I try them all on dutifully. Eventually, I get a little tired of being a clothes horse.

  ‘Can’t I try and pick something?’

  Milo and Dan look at each other conspiratorially. ‘Give it a go,’ says Dan, trying hard not to smirk.

  I try on a pair of three-quarter-length trousers, the type that Dan normally wears, but on me they look like a normal pair that have just shrunk in the wash. Next, I pick up a pair of Levi’s, assuming that I can’t go wrong with them. It says ‘Anti-fit’ on the label, and I’m sure I’ve read about these in GQ.