British Winters

by Andrew Turner

  Chapter Four

  Drinking with Strangers

  The George is a nice place to drink on a Friday. It’s one of those places that never gets too full. There are always enough folk around to let you know you are out amongst people, that you’re a good healthy member of society, and yet it never gets so busy that a trip to the Gents is a long and arduous journey, or that getting served at the bar is not a dog-eat-dog affair. Nails is still working, so getting served isn’t going to be a problem for me either way.

  “What will it be mate?”

  “My round, so give me four pints of the cheap stuff and a pint of the good stuff. And, what the hell, give me a shot of something golden brown while I wait.”

  Nails pours me what I expect to be whiskey, as that’s kind of what I was asking for, then again I guess I did take liberties with my wording, so it seems fair that he takes liberties with his conclusion. It was nice, though I’m not much of a drinks’ connoisseur so you’re not going to get a highly detailed description of, “Oh, there’s a tang, I’m thinking berries; I’m also sensing a little oakiness.” What do they mean when they say oakiness? Are they claiming it tastes like wood, because if so that doesn’t sound like a good thing to me, kind of like eating a steak and saying you can taste the grassiness.

  “What is it?”

  “Spiced rum, ya like?”

  “I do, I’ll have another in fact.”

  “Are you drunk already?”

  “A little, I finished off a little bottle of scotch I had in the house.”

  “Then let’s take a rain check on the second rum, ay?”

  “Don’t worry, Nails, I start heavy then I all but stop by midnight.”

  “Just pace yourself.”

  “Why so worried, matey?”

  “Cos I’m gonna be joining ya after I close and it’d be nice if you were still standing.”

  “Ok, for you, my friend, for you.”

  With a tray full of beers, I head over to my group at our chosen table by the jukebox. As I make my way over, it dawns on me that I have no idea which one of the pints is the decent one.

  Four friends await me, though lately they seem more like strangers; all well rounded and respected members of the community. Craig Hall is a bank worker; he has been married to the wife for one year and they have two kids together. By doing the maths it is evident that one of his two little miracles is a bastard. William Fitzpatrick is a guy who gave up going to university after his father suffered a stroke and he stepped in and took over the family business, a local newsagents. He has no children at the moment, but does live in the flat above the newsagents with his girlfriend whom he has been dating since high school, so it’s safe to say that there will be some in the near future. David Townsend - ok, Dave’s the exception. This guy is the local male slag; let me confirm that he is not a stud. A stud is someone who has the skill to bed whomever they want and a slag is someone who bangs anyone who is willing to let them. Dave is a slag. The final friend is Toby Barsky, the local journalist I have already mentioned. He is my oldest friend; ergo he is my best friend. Toby gets me, no he doesn’t, he nods in agreement as I talk and then four or five sentences in he starts to get that look of confusion just like everybody else.

  “You ok, Noel?” he says as he watches my eyes as they flit from one pint glass to the next.

  “Aye, you?”

  “Couldn’t be better. Did you read the paper today?” I watch as each one of my pseudo friends takes a gulp from their pint glass. Each one pulls a little face as they realise that I’ve bought them the cheapest beer in the place; all of them except Dave. Shit, Dave got it; Dave got the good one, which means I’ve got one of the nasty cheap ones.

  “Yep, seems your ruse with the headmaster paid off.”

  “That’s all you can say? What about the play, Noel? The play was beautiful.”

  “Yeah, I read it - not a dry eye in the house.”

  “Not one - me too, Noel. Your sister made Christmas feel special again. It was like It’s a Wonderful Life or something.”

  “Cool, maybe Andrew Lloyd Webber will buy the rights and turn it into a big gay-fest like he did with T.S. Elliot poems.”

  “Gay-fest, nice.”

  I didn’t mean that the way it came out, but have you seen Cats? It really is gay; it’s gayer than two blokes dressed up like Liza Minnelli blowing each other, which incidentally I’d rather watch. I’d like to state for the record that I’m not one of those people who says, “I’m not homophobic, I just don’t like flamboyant gays.” I don’t like anybody who is flamboyant, gay or straight, male or female, fruit or vegetable. The last example was meant as a joke but now I come to think of it, have you seen one of those dragon fruits? A bright pink thing with green tentacles; that’s all kinds of wrong. I think it’s part of the cactus family. So we’re eating cactus now, really? Is this the apex of the modern life diet? Pink cactus? Shit, I’m losing my train of thought again. Nails is right - I got to slow down.

  Flamboyancy, why do I have such a problem with people with undiagnosed Attention-Deficit Disorders? Because when I am around people who act as though the very essence of joy beats in their soul, I feel as though they are taking that joy and energy directly from me. Like that little troll in Cat’s Eyes; they enter the room and with every rapturous response over the most benign thing I feel a draining of my very life force.

  “Why didn’t you go, Noel?” Toby adds himself to the list of people who find it abhorrent that I did not attend Hannah’s play. I also now find myself on this metaphorical list.

  “Because…” What am I doing? I don’t have a good answer for this and the real answer is, “Because, I’m an arsehole.”

  The other three friends break from their conversations of football or ‘what the credit crunch means to them’ and look to me with surprise; not with surprise that I’m an arsehole, but surprised that I am so easy to admit it. No, it’s not surprise they are showing. I think they have seen my statement of self-degradation as a sign of anger to Toby’s question; a drunken outburst. Maybe it was, I am drunk and the question did piss me off. No, I meant it; I am a total arsehole for not going, selfishly punishing Hannah for my own issues.

  “I am. I have no excuse. I woke up and didn’t want to go, so I didn’t.”

  The group now switch from ‘oh no, angry drunk moment’ to ‘oh no, sad drunk moment’ and tell me that it’s not true even though I just told them exactly what happened. Dave then tells me how he’s never been to any of his sister’s plays. Great, the local bike is also an arsehole. I didn’t even know Dave had a sister. Who is Dave? Beside the fact that he likes to fuck a lot, I know nothing about this guy.

  Craig opts for the overused, “We all have bad days, mate.” Then tells me how he was supposed to go to his mum’s for Sunday lunch last week and how he just bailed, said he’d got a bug. Yeah, that’s exactly the same, you missing a family lunch and me purposely missing a one-off play that Hannah and I slaved over for weeks. Yep, cheers, Craig, we’re like kindred spirits. Will nods and agrees to both comments, Toby just looks disappointed.

  “Nature calls,” that was my out. I would have said it even if it wasn’t true but I have been downing pints so the need for urination is now a seemingly constant sensation.

  In the Gents I make the drunken mistake of peeing in the middle of the trough-like urinal because it is empty. Unfortunately, by the time I’ve undone my button fly, I am shoulder to shoulder with two big farmer types; red cheeked, big thick white hair like sheep’s wool and eyebrows like exotic albino caterpillars. This thick white hair trait all farmers appear to have has to be where the sheep shagging myth stems from if, it is indeed, only a myth. My eyes are fixated on the wall in front of me; someone has scribbled: ‘DAVE WOZ ERE 98’ in biro on the flaky painted surface. This always confuses me - why would anyone want others to know that they had used a public toilet? I would much prefer people to think that I had somehow managed to avoid ever using such a nasty place
. In fact I’d love to have a picture of myself in every men’s room in the country that I have never used with a plaque that says: ‘Noel Walter Winters has, so far, never entered this place’. This urination is taking longer than I can handle. I was the first here; if the other two finish before me I’m going to look like I’ve got a real problem. I can feel the strain on my bladder has long since gone but the fluid in still going strong. My fixed stare on the graffiti is faltering: ‘DAVE WOZ ERE 98’. I bet that was Dave Townsend. Why do I falter? Because a man always needs to know: ‘I’m a good size’ - no matter whether his girl/boyfriend tells him it is a good size; no matter whether he’s measured and read all the statistics. When an opportunity arises to see side-by-side comparison, a man needs to know. I don’t think that most men are even in a hunt to find out that they are the biggest; I think they just want to know they are not the smallest. With two blinks of the eyes the mission is over and my pupils are focused back on Dave’s testimonial, though I have to say in my slightly drunken state I shouldn’t use the word focused. Oh Jesus, they were both massive, like pink elephants at a watering hole. Why did I look? Shit, I’ve stopped peeing. How long have I been stood here, cock out and not peeing?

  The farmer types shake and zip up almost synchronised and as they walk away one turns to me and says, “I think you’re done, son. Put the monster away.”

  “Ha, yeah, I spaced out a little there.” I force a laugh; my oral punctuation.

  He looked, too; maybe just because he noticed the stop of water flow, but he still looked. Monster? That’s got to be a good thing, right? I mean ‘monster’ is not a common penis reference; it’s a reference to size, has to be.

  After washing my hands I notice a wet patch on my jeans and try to work out whether it was backsplash from the sink or the urinal. Either way, the guys will be of the strongest of opinions that it is the latter. Toby passes me as I exit the Gents and he enters. Girls pee in groups; guys work more like a relay team passing the baton to the next swollen-bladdered male. I need to rethink my use of ‘passing the baton’ in my peeing relay metaphor as it, at least to me, conjures up images of men handing each other their penises. Toby’s look of disappointment is still apparent, even with my beer goggles on.

  Back at the table, Craig has bought another round and the three friends have returned to their previous conversation, which turns out, was football and they do not pause in their back and forth banter to welcome me back from my journey. And so I sit down and take a glug from my freshly bought pint, which Craig has pointed out to me, still not breaking from the conversation or even making direct eye contact. And yes, he’s bought me the cheap stuff. I’m lost when it comes to discussions of football or any sport for that matter. I just don’t care enough. Yes, I’m impressed when someone can show great ability or skill and strength but I don’t care enough to go beyond that. To me it’s a parlour trick; something you see, you smile and clap at, and then move on. The masses, however, have turned them into gods, icons for our age and what gods they are: Beckham the god of fashion; Cole the god of infidelity; Rooney the god of idiocy; and of course the old gods like Georgie Best, the god of alcoholism. Am I just bitter; bitter that others are more talented than I, jealous that these modern day titans get the admiration of the people? I do not feel this bitterness towards Einstein whose intellect stretches far beyond mine; and Gandhi had the admiration of the masses - that’s masses on a global scale - yet I do not feel any malice towards his fame. Why? Because these people mattered; what they did changed the world, unlike Gazza, who has trouble changing his pants. Oh no, that was a little juvenile. Why do I drink?

  “Noel, drink up.” William snaps me back into consciousness. Toby had bought another round; I notice the empty glasses for the last round and mine is still two-thirds full.

  “What were you thinking of?” he continues.

  “Gandhi.”

  “Shit, we are having a deep discussion of the man’s game and you’re spanking it off in ya head to Ben Kingsley?” David’s words echo the demons of my previous thoughts.

  The guys then heckle me with random Kingsley jokes, which is difficult to do as most people only know that he played Gandhi and that he was a bloke in Schindler’s List, so the jokes always come back to me bumming Mahatma Gandhi. By the time I’ve finished my two-thirds glass of vile cheap beer the jokes have ceased and only the slightly out of breath giggle remains. A successful mocking is complete. All in good fun and high spirits; the only problem is when such events have come to pass all involved seem a little lost on the other side of the high jinks, as if they had invested so much into that moment that when it’s gone they feel lost and without a purpose.

  Time passes by. Deb and a few of her friends join us; this does not change the dynamics of the group as the newcomers talk amongst themselves and the men continue their generic conversations. I take this time to reflect on my encounter in the Gents; a big surly farmer checked out my manhood then commented on it… I feel abused. I replay it over and over in my mind. Is calling it a monster a compliment? He also asked me to put it away so there’s a contradiction.

  What does it matter? Yes, the guy snuck a peek, so did I. In fact I snuck two peeks, but why the comment?

  “Do you love me, Noel?” What? Oh it’s Deb, with an ill-timed question.

  “Is there a follow up question?”

  “No?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you think is the next step?”

  “You said there weren’t any follow up questions.”

  “I finish Uni next year, so...”

  “How does that affect this?”

  “This? What is this?”

  “Are we heading into an argument?”

  “I don’t know, are there any follow up questions?”

  Deb is studying business something or other and she’s been studying it since we’ve been dating. I knew that when that course came to an end the ease of this relationship would also finish. We live in a world where relationships need level ups as though love is an RPG. And by RPG, I mean ‘role play game’ not ‘rocket propelled grenade’, but you knew that, right? A romantic relationship can’t just be two people enjoying each other’s company; it needs to be going somewhere. As you will have guessed the level ups go as follows: moving in together; getting married; buying a house; and having kids. These may come in various orders. Along with society programming us into believing that we need to do these things, it has also in some cosmic joke programmed the majority of women to lose their minds trying to obtain these things and programmed the majority of men into spending their lives fearing them. I am not one of these men. I just don’t love Deb. Maybe that’s a little harsh. I do love her but not in that ‘forever and a day’ way.

  “If we’re not going anywhere, Noel, then I need to know.”

  “We’ve had nearly three years of going nowhere, is that not a clue?”

  She looks horrified. I’ve gone too far; that was a low blow. I did it to hurt her but I didn’t want to hurt her; it’s an action/thought process misfire.

  “What I mean is that we’re happy now, why rock the boat?” There’s another saying that falls apart under analysis. Yes, if you rock the boat the boat fills with water, sinks and you drown. However, in the same vein, if you do nothing the boat floats in the ocean and you die of dehydration. Maybe the analogy implies the boat is already in a forward flowing motion; maybe I’m thinking too deeply into a simplistic saying.

  “I’m thinking of moving to Manchester next summer, would you come with me?”

  “That’s a big level up.”

  “A what?”

  “I don’t know. That’s a big change.”

  The city, could I do it, move from my rural town and live in the big smoke? God, I’m a selfish waste of matter; I’m thinking of this as though it’s about me. Deb is thinking about where the future is best for her and is asking if I’d be willing to join her. Hey, wait, she’s being selfish too!

  �
�Is that a yes or a no?”

  “It’s neither. Can we talk about this when I’m not drunk?”

  “You’re right; this isn’t the time or place. Do you really love me?”

  “Of course.”

  She smiles; all her cares have gone at this moment. She cares nothing for levelling up; she is content in the knowledge that her man loves her, and I feel terrible.

  Blazers is the closest thing this town has to a nightclub and people from the surrounding towns and villages will journey to it because they have even less. As with all small town nightclubs, it caters to the twenty-something binge-drinking crowd, which means the music is awful and banging; the alcoholic shots are luminous; the women are half-dressed; and the guys are all dickheads. I don’t much like Blazers. Trying to converse is a pointless chore; groups of people all trying to tell the person next to them that, “It’s a bit loud in here.” I’d be quite happy to say that my dislike is due to me getting older if it wasn’t for the fact that I hated this place just as much back when I was eighteen years old. In fact I’d go further than that and say that I hated the shithole from the first moment I heard someone say, “Hey, have you heard about that new club, Blazers?” I would have been around eleven.

  My pupils remain dilated as a bright blue light flashes directly into my eyes from the other side of the club. Numbed by intoxication, I’m watching Deb as she gyrates up against her female friends in the middle of the dance floor. They are all collaborators in this en vogue display of lesbianism. This is accepted as a completely heterosexual act, as they do it to entice the males of the species. I wonder what the reaction would be if Nails and I were to partake in the same activity? I spy a secondary group of women also playing gay for the night. Is this a step forward for the gay community - in that, gay women are now so accepted that two straight women can happily perform such a clearly lesbian act in a public place without scorn? Or is it a massive slap in the face - a pantomime version of another person’s life; a twist of a knife saying, ‘look what us normal folks can do whilst you are still seen as second class citizens’? Again, I wonder what would happen to Nails and me if we were to start grinding upon each other in the middle of the dance floor.

  The two groups of faux lesbians now seem to be competing for the crowd’s attention; a competition of who will go the furthest, which will go the gayest. The two groups defy their biological makeup, running their hands down each other’s bodies, gazing into each other’s eyes with looks of lust and temptation, groping and grinding… then both lose as a new couple of girls walk to the centre of the dance floor and instantly start kissing in a manner that some people, not me but some people, may describe as facefucking. I’d like to use the word passionately but passion is an emotion and this act is a meaningless action without feeling, soulless and dead. These two are queens of the Borg. I do not know these women but I know their kind; lifeless drones who believe their ability to get mass attention gives them power, but all it does is make them sideshow freaks that when alone, are hollow and tear-stained.

  “Whoa, still standing, Mr Winters!” Nails has arrived and it is a welcome sight.

  “I told you, all but stopped!”

  “Aye, stopped drinking but not buying, by the looks of it!” Nails is referring to the three full bottles of alcohol I have clasped in my hands. I’d like to say that I am holding them for others but the truth is, different members of the group have been randomly buying them for me and I have drunk to capacity. Not the capacity of drunkenness, though I am not in any way trying to claim that I am not absolutely wasted, because I am and then some. I am at my capacity in a very physical sense; I cannot drink because I have no space within myself to store said liquids.

  “I’m holding for Deb!” Ah, the Queen’s English, spoken so very, very eloquently.

  “And the other two?”

  “One’s yours, knew you’d be in at any moment!”

  Nails takes the beer and says, “Bullshit.” This is not shouted, thus it is not heard. I knew what was said though, so I smile like the drunken buffoon I am.

  Nails and I head outside for a smoke. I’m not really much of a smoker but since the bar and eatery smoking ban I’ve found myself following the smokers to their designated place of purgatory, then to be polite I take any cigarettes that are offered. I don’t know if I do it because I always pity the underdog or because it’s nice to be in a place away from the noise. Their purgatory is my shelter away from the storm; the irony in that statement being that if there were to be a storm we’d all be pissed wet through as there is no form of shelter in this particular smoking area.

  “Deb’s looking good tonight.” Nails clearly has a thing for Deb. It doesn’t concern me, in some ways it’s a compliment, another person having a crush on your girlfriend, or maybe it’s just weird, I don’t know. I think knowing he won’t act on it makes it a compliment, rather than a threat. He’s become a good friend in the past few years and he seems like a ‘bro’s before ho’s’ kind of guy. God, that’s a stupid saying. Yes, I would always choose a male sibling over a prostitute, unless the choice was who you would prefer to sleep with. Not that I sleep with prostitutes; I’m just saying in a choice between sex with a family member and a woman for hire, I have to choose the whore. I have never paid for sex. I have nothing against prostitutes and that includes my sweaty naked body. It seems that my train of thought has once again derailed. Nails, the crush, that’s what I was talking about. It’s not really a crush; it’s more that he’d absolutely love to knock boots with her. Which I take as, “Hey, man, your girlfriend’s hot,” which is nice, right? I mean, that another person finds her hot; of course it would be more ideal if I had the crush on her. I guess sometimes you just have to bang the circle into the square hole, which is not a euphemism by the way.

  “It’s wrong; I pay the same price to get in and pay the same price for the drinks but we have to spend half of our night out in the cold. I could have the same night by buying a lager six-pack and drinking it in my backyard for a quarter of the price,” states a random nicotine fiend.

  The ‘no-smoking in clubs and pubs’ ban seems to have happened decades ago but you get a group of pissed-up smokers together and that’s where the conversation will drift.

  “I buy the fags inside from an overpriced vending machine and then have to smoke them outside. I guess they’ve got your money so what do they care?” another one adds.

  “You know there is no real proof that smoking even leads to cancer,” says another. The wheezy mob nod in unison: I am compelled to step in.

  “What? I don’t think major tobacco companies are going to print in big letters that ‘Smoking Kills’ on a hunch, or pay out large cash amounts in court cases without any evidence.”

  “Second-hand smoke I mean,” the smoker corrects himself.

  “Well, there’s a whiff of truth to that, if you’re under the naïve belief that you, the smoker, are sucking in all bad stuff and blowing out harmless smoke like you are a human filter. But when you take into account that less than fifty per cent of the oxygen we breathe in stays in our systems and the rest is blown back out, I’d say it’s safe to say the same rules could also apply to cigarette smoke.”

  “Where are you getting this less than fifty per cent shite from?”

  “CPR training. The fact we blow out so much oxygen is how we are able to blow it back into someone else.”

  Nails backs me up, “My mate’s bang on the money, he’s The George’s first-aider.”

  “So you’re happy to be pushed out in the cold?”

  “No way, I agree with you guys on that. The way I see it, to be at danger from second-hand smoke you have to be in a confined area, with lots of smokers, for extended periods of time, i.e. bar staff. This could all be fixed with a proper air filtering system but it’s cheaper to chuck us out here than fork out for the filters.”

  “Money, bloody money.” Now the mob sees I’m back on their side so we’re best mates aga
in. Mobs of people are so easy to please. I could have said, ‘Hey, let’s give the bar staff gasmasks!’ as long as at the end of the statement I acknowledge the mobs’ injustice; that’s all angry mobs want - a big cuddle and a reassuring, ‘I know, I know’. No one wants real answers, rational solutions; because the reality of the situation may differ for the one-dimensional fantasy they have conjured up in their minds.

  Don’t get me wrong, I truly believe that the smoking ban is unfair. People are being punished because they do something society deems as bad. ‘Smoking kills’, yeah, so does drinking. ‘But smoking can kill others; those who do not choose to smoke.’ Well, maybe that’s true but we are the ones choosing to be around these smokers and so, if it is us non-smokers, and yes I do see myself as a non-smoker or at least I did till the ban, if it is us that have the problem then maybe we’re the ones who should go outside. Let us enjoy the fresh air we so much desire. Hell, let’s just rip off the roof; no contained pollutant, no shared cancer. Hooray, we all win! Or maybe the government can give out smoking licences to any bar that’s willing to put in a filter system and then maybe those OAPs who have smoked their entire lives, and feel that at seventy there isn’t much point in quitting, don’t have to sit in the cold rain when they fancy nipping to their local for a quick pint. We have to question a society that gives people the choice to do something, and then punishes them for making that choice. My fear is where does it stop? Fatty foods are bad for you, at what point will I get ostracised from the community for eating a doughnut?

  Nails smokes his cigarette to the filter; I, on the other hand, stump mine out just a little over half smoked. I’m not a fan; I just like trying to be sociable by joining in on an unsociable act. We leave smokers’ island and head into the warmth. Sorry to any of you who were expecting, after the announcement of me being a first-aider, a comical moment in which someone collapses and someone else yells, “Is there anyone trained in first aid?” to which comedy ensues because I try to shy away from my responsibilities. It just didn’t happen and if it did, I would take my duty as a first-aider very seriously; I once gave mouth-to-mouth to a tramp. It wasn’t Hobo Joe, I mean Michael, it was an appreciative hobo. Well, I’m sure he would have been if he’d have lived.

  Back inside, I’m stopped by a woman. It’s Jenny Weir, the coolest girl I ever dated. Well, we didn’t date per se. Back in my younger days I met this goddess of loveliness and fell for her instantly. Most men did. She was that dark, moody, sexy type that some guys really get into; I was, and am, one of them ‘some guys’. She liked real music, she was into films made before she was born, and she quoted Jack Kerouac. I never knew which book or poem the quotes would be from but I knew it was Kerouac, because after the quote she’d take a drag of a cigarette or knock back a shot of whiskey, which of course she referred to as bourbon, give you a glance and say “Kerouac”. At the time we were not friends; I don’t even know if you could call us acquaintances. I knew of her and whenever she was around I’d find a way to sit at her table. I now see that comes across as a little stalker-like but hey, how bad can stalking really be? Sting wrote a song about being a stalker and now it is one of the most played songs for the bride and groom’s first dance. Anyway, the stalking paid off. One night I had worked my way over to her and as usual she paid me no attention, so I began a conversation with a friend of hers called Foggy, a skinny guy with an undercut, ginger but dyed black. I started to tell him that I’d just watched Fritz Lang’s M and how good it was. We started talking about how if such a film was to be made today it would be accused of sympathising with paedophiles rather than praised for having the strength to question the flaws within ourselves. A good point, if not a rather drunken and pretentious one. All of a sudden, Jenny was in on the conversation. “Didn’t you think that his use of the absence of sound really added to the hysteria of the piece?” Jenny jumped in and I nodded like a cartoon cat being offered a fish. We talked, we laughed, we made out and we screwed; screwed with young passion and flavoured condoms. The next day I awoke in her flat alone, a note on the fridge: “Gone to work, let yourself out. J, XXX”

  I didn’t see her again till the following weekend and seeing her was all that happened.

  “Noel, right?”

  “Yes?”

  “Jenny, Jenny Weir. How are you?”

  “I’m sorry, how do we know each other?” I reply, playing it cool, right real nonchalant.

  “I use to hang at Rat and Turtle; you too, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah. What was your name again?”

  “Jenny Weir, have I really changed that much?”

  “No, I mean I’m sure you haven’t. A lot of faces back then ya know.”

  “I guess, but we got together once. Remember we were talking about that really old movie?”

  “M.”

  “That’s right M, so you remember now?”

  “I remember talking to Foggy about... Wait, yep, Gemma, you like Kerouac?”

  “Jenny, and yes. Noel, I just bumped into your friend Toby. Why do you think he’d send me over here saying you’d love to see me, if you have no idea who I am?”

  “Why, why would he do that? That is certainly odd.”

  “Not quite as odd as you pretending not to remember me.”

  I hate you Toby, I’ve played out the chance encounter with Jenny Weir over and over in my mind and you have just fucked it. So what do I say; why would a normal person claim to have no idea who someone was, when it is quite clear they have been obsessing over them for the past ten years?

  “I wouldn’t call it pretending, more like…”

  “Lying?”

  “Yes, lies are a part of it.”

  “Most of it.”

  “All of it really, I just didn’t want to come across like...”

  “Like a person who remembers the women he sleeps with?”

  “Like I didn’t move on.”

  “Move on from what? We slept together once.”

  “That we did.”

  “Ok, I’m going to walk away now because this is a little weird.” Jenny turns to leave.

  “We turn at a dozen paces, love is a duel, and we look at each other for the last time.” I mutter to myself but loud enough for her to hear.

  “Kerouac.”

  “Yeah, I finally read it.”

  “What do you mean you finally read it?”

  “Never read it before. I finished it like two months ago.”

  “Shut up everyone who used to go to the Rat and Turtle, had read On the Road at least once.” I’ve turned the situation on its head. I was nose-diving in solid ground, my engines failing and I’ve righted the plane, I’m Captain Sully and Flight 1549 has landed safely in the Hudson. She smiles, God take me now, Jenny Weir.

  “Not me, faked it. I also faked watching the first Evil Dead film, I still haven’t seen it.”

  “You’ve never seen Evil Dead?”

  “Nope, seen the other two. Hell, Dead by Dawn is in my top five favourite films of all time but I’ve never seen the first film.”

  “God, Noel, you’re such a liar… I’ve never seen Citizen Kane.”

  “Lots of folk lie about that one.”

  “You, too?”

  “Fuck no, that film’s like the birth of modern cinema; you should be whipped and spat upon for having not watched it.”

  “Tell you what, why don’t you buy me a drink first?”

  “Ah, can’t, girlfriend.”

  “I’m pretty sure I said drink.”

  “You did, but we live in a time where the masses frown down on a guy with a girlfriend who buys other women drinks. I’m sure that there’s a lot of frowning going on right now with us just standing here talking.” Out of the corner of my eye I see a displeased looking Deb, which means one of two things will happen. Either she’ll come over and act overly affectionate to show the other female I am taken, or she will wait for me to walk over to her and will act all pissed off and stroppy, then storm off before I can
speak.

  “Is that the girlfriend?”

  “Yep, that’s my Deb.”

  “She’s very cute, very tanned.”

  “Yeah, it’s an earth tone.”

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it? Ah well, so long… Neil, was it?”

  Jenny smiles and then disappears into the sea of people, heading in the direction of the bar. I remain very visible with Deb’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my head. The walk over to her is one of apprehension; apprehension of the more than predictable discussion that awaits me at my final destination. It starts with, “Who the fuck is she?” and continues with, “Well, I don’t care who the fuck she is!” I explain that Jenny is a friend from way back, which is a lie and tell her that there was never anything sexual, which is also a lie and that it’s more of a brother/sister thing we had which is a massive whopper of a lie. Surprisingly, Toby backs me up, even though he is still clearly pissed at me. Guys always back up other guys, even guys they don’t really even like that much; it’s such a blokey thing to do. Nights out, mixing with masses, has a tendency to make me ying-yang between which is the dumbest gender.

  Deb calms down somewhat and the night continues in the same fashion it had done before the unlikely event of me bumping into a girl that I’ve thought about at least once a day since the day I met her, which is pathetic as I haven’t seen her since I screwed her and that was many moons ago. I drink some more; Deb dances some more; Dave bangs some short plump forty-year-old in the Gents and then leaves with a completely different woman with the same proportions and age bracket. William and Craig do some puking and at some point in the evening make out with each other and Nails; he is my wing man for the night. If I get a drink he gets a drink; if I need a piss he waits outside the Gents for me; if I want to dance he’s up there grooving away right by my side. It’s Blazers so we don’t; the music in here really is appalling. But what about Toby, my oldest friend, what became of him? Toby slipped away at an unknown moment in time, got out good and early. Something’s up with Toby and me. We don’t hang out as much as we used to. I think I’m pulling away from him and he knows it. I guess I need to add bad friend to my rap sheet; bad brother, bad son, bad boyfriend and now bad best friend. I’m becoming quite the villain, social poison, and I’m doing it intentionally, yet I don’t know why.

  Slipping in and out of consciousness and coherency, I spend the tail end of the night scanning the club in the hopes of seeing Jenny again, but with no luck. She has re-entered my life like a carrot on the end of a stick. This donkey’s tired, but something wants me to keep going. Depressed and barely lucid, I find refuge in an empty bathroom cubicle. The sanitation in this W.C. makes the toilets in The George look like the Queen’s own personal crapper. And yet there appears to be more ‘I WOZ HERE’ graffiti in here than any other toilet I have ever used. Is that the way it works; the filthier the loo the more these morons want to declare their presence in it? The music in the world outside my refuge is a monotone thud that makes my head swell with every boom. As I feel myself drifting away I notice that all the names that line the walls of the cubicle are female names; either this is where Dave makes his conquests or I’m in the girls’ toilets.