Three's a Crowd

by Simon Booker

  I know I haven’t been fair on the boy – ignoring calls and emails, pretending to be out when the doorbell rings – but he’s twenty-five, it’s not my job to put a gloss on the world. Besides, going off the radar is more honest than pretending things are hunky-dory when they’re not.

  As for the rest of our so-called family, Bonnie’s parents are no longer with us, neither is my mother, and it goes without saying that confiding in my father is out of the question. More anon, as they say.

  I spend a lot of time hanging around the Silk FM studios, so I’m seldom alone for long, which is a blessing. The flat can seem very empty, the atmosphere as cheery as a launderette on a rainy Sunday night. Tom suggested a pet but I’m allergic to cats and dogs are too needy.

  (I can hear Bonnie now. ‘Pot meet kettle.’)

  If you believe her, I’ve never had a talent for friendship, one of my many shortcomings. Maybe she’s right. It’s not that I don’t have ways of killing time. There’s usually a PR bash in the evening – a book launch or a screening, somewhere to scoff canapés so I needn’t resort to the microwave every night – but I don’t mind admitting: I miss having someone to do nothing with. As for women, I’m resigned to being invisible to the opposite sex. Unfairly, it happens to men later than women – around forty in my case – but it comes to us all and surely it’s better to resign oneself to the inevitable than turn into one of those tragic Peter Pans, flirting for England and trying to catch any passing eye in the hope of an ego boost.

  (Incidentally, anything you want to know about ready meals, I’m your man. My favourite is Marks and Spencer’s Scottish Lochmuir oak-smoked salmon topped with Pacific-fresh king prawns. I also have a soft spot for their moussaka: intricate layers of tender minced lamb, sliced potatoes and roasted aubergines with a creamy béchamel sauce. I might write a book: Ready Meals and Other Staging Posts on the Road to Hell.)

  I suppose there’s a slim chance that Bonnie might come to her senses. Until then, there’s The Richard Young Show to keep me from navel-gazing, plus a ton of extracurricular activities, like sifting through entries to the Voice of London competition. Over the years, I’ve talent-spotted several successful wannabes, plucking their DJ demos from the slush pile, so when Transport for London asked if I’d judge the shortlist of entrants it seemed like what Tom would call a no-brainer.

  Few people understand the importance of a voice. Its timbre – its character – is as unique as any fingerprint. Reactions to a voice can determine the course of a life: jobs you get, friends you make, people you fall for. When I met Bonnie she said mine sounded like ‘honey on hot buttered toast’. God knows what she’d compare it to now. A worn-out Brillo pad?

  Think about it. The voice you want to hear reading a bedtime story is different from the one you want whispering sweet nothings, and worlds apart from the voice you need ordering you to fasten your seatbelt and prepare for turbulence.

  So far, my favourite Voice of London entry comes from an out-of-work actress who’s making ends meet as a barista in a Dalston café. She sounds classy yet classless, calm yet authoritative, clever but not smart-arse. There’s a husky quality to her voice that I find enticing. Apparently, her dream is to make the Hollywood big-time so she can buy her Nan a rose-covered cottage in the country.

  No promises, my lovely, but if you’re half as nice as you sound, you’re very nice indeed. I’ll put you at the top of the pile.

  TOM

  So before the shit hit the proverbial – before the con-man, the stolen diamonds and the skeleton in the family closet that made me re-think everything I knew – life was trundling along as you might expect for a twenty-five-year-old hack renting a one-bedroom flat in hipster central, aka vibrant, noisy, scruffy Dalston, spiritual home of sourdough, beards and bikes. Okay, my father was a DJ and I’d grown up in a posh part of London so maybe it wasn’t the most normal upbringing but there was nothing to prepare me for the bombshell that would rock my world.

  Looking back, it’s weird how easily I came to accept everything that happened – how quickly it became the new normal. If I’d known then what I know now, would I have behaved the same? Would I have allowed myself to fall for an older woman with beautiful green eyes and a gorgeous voice? Who can say? I dabbled in philosophy at uni (a bid to impress girls) and as Kierkegaard said, ‘Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards’ and WTF is the use of that?

  There was no time to ponder the mysteries of existence, however, because I was broke. I worked out that if I cut out my daily cappuccino I could save sixty quid a month – that’s £750 per year. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have the chance to talk to the woman in the New Dalston Café. I was chuffed when I realized Harriet no longer had to ask my name, she simply scrawled it on the cup when I sauntered in and started to banter.

  If only it were that simple. I’ve never ‘sauntered’ in my life. I’m a loper. It’s what tall people do – we lope. And when it came to ‘bantz’ I was no natural. The moment the alarm went off I’d start thinking about what I’d say to her but at the crucial moment, my head would fill with white noise and I’d blurt the first thing that came into my head. This morning was typical.

  ‘Hi, Tom.’ She flashed a smile over a freckled shoulder while setting a cup under the Gaggia. ‘How’s tricks?’

  ‘So far, so good,’ I said. Then came the brain-freeze. I couldn’t stop myself spouting nonsense. ‘But it’s only eight o’clock so, like, anything could happen.’

  I forgot the compliment I’d been honing since daybreak – the one about her voice sounding like music and her long, lustrous hair reminding me of polished conkers – so I had no choice but to go with the flow.

  ‘Such as?’ she said, smiling over her shoulder. (That smile. I can’t even.)

  ‘Sorry?’ I said.

  ‘You said “anything could happen”. Like?’

  I should have shut up but the idiot who controls my mouth decided this was the ideal moment to keep digging.

  ‘Like a big…’ I tailed off. Harriet arched an eyebrow, still smiling as she frothed the milk. I carried on, hurtling towards disaster. ‘Like a big… truck crashing through the window and wiping us all out. Blood everywhere. Broken limbs. Maybe a decapitation.’

  Her smile faltered. The woman behind me put a hand to her neck, as though feeling the truck’s impact.

  ‘Riiiiight,’ said Harriet, drawing out the word.

  You’d think I’d have the sense to shut up. Nope.

  ‘Do you know what a palindrome is?’ I said.

  Her smile faltered. I was mansplaining.

  ‘Let’s see, could a palindrome be… a word or phrase that reads the same backwards as forwards?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Like “madam”,’ I said.

  ‘Or “kayak”,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Kayak. Better than “madam”. Much better.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom.’

  The smile had disappeared.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t mean to sound patronizing. It’s just…’

  She finished frothing my cappuccino then set the cup on the counter and held my gaze.

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘I was wondering if you knew the waitress’s palindrome.’

  ‘No.’

  I cleared my throat.

  ‘ “Stressed? No tips? Spit on desserts”.’

  ‘Very clever.’

  She picked up the shaker, sprinkled cinnamon on the froth then snapped a lid onto my cup. ‘Have a good day,’ she said. ‘And watch out for idiots driving those big trucks.’

  ‘You too,’ I said, making sure to include the woman behind me as my idiocy soared to Olympic heights. ‘Let’s hope we make it through the day without being decapitated.’

  Harriet held up the card reader. I tapped my Visa and fled.

  Outside, heading for the bus stop, I silently berated myself. I know how it looks but I’m not always a knob. I hold down a job, I survived uni without making a tot
al idiot of myself, and I’ve been lucky enough to go out with some brilliant women. Five, if you want to know. Not that I’m counting. Well, obviously, I am counting but you know what I mean. I’m not sure what the definition of ‘player’ is but I’ll never be one because I’m allergic to one-night-stands. I also remember one of the few pieces of advice my father gave me.

  ‘When it comes to women, these are the priorities: kind, clever, funny, gorgeous – in that order.’

  I can’t pretend I always follow his edict – I’m twenty-five, FFS, there are nights when gorgeous seems like the most important thing – but he was right in principle. And the more I saw of the girl with green eyes, the more I thought she ticked all four boxes – and in the right order.

  Dad was still off the radar, ignoring my calls and emails. But while I was outside the café, waiting for the bus and sipping my coffee, I glimpsed his face on a poster for Silk FM. The ad was on a bus heading for Hampstead. I suddenly remembered an outing when I was a kid. He dragged me to the Hampstead Observatory: a big white dome on top of the hill; a giant telescope manned by blokes in bobble hats, queuing up to peer through the lens.

  Before I could change my mind, I’d walked back into the café. Harriet was busy with a customer, a fit-looking bloke with a beard and backpack. She was laughing at something he said and I felt a powerful urge to punch him. They were talking about the London Marathon.

  ‘You look so fit,’ said the hipster. ‘Are you running this year?’

  Harriet shook her head, unleashing a cascade of curls.

  ‘If God had meant us to run he would never have given us sofas.’

  Beardie laughed. My urge to hit him reached new heights. I had an image of them kissing and felt a physical pain in my gut. After more lame banter he paid for his coffee and left. I positioned myself in Harriet’s eye-line and took a deep breath.

  ‘Me again,’ I said. ‘I think you’re very cool. I only come in because I want an excuse to talk to you but I can’t afford overpriced coffee every day. If you say no, I, like, totally get it, but is there any chance you might be free on Saturday night, and could you be arsed to come to Hampstead Observatory and look at Saturn? Well, not just Saturn, obviously – there are other planets – but Saturn is cool.’

  Saturn is cool. FFS!

  The silence seemed to last an age. She broke it with the worst sentence ever.

  ‘You’ve got froth on your nose.’

  My hand jerked to my face. I wiped the froth away then turned to leave, hoping the ground would open up and swallow me alive.

  ‘Tom?’

  I turned. She was smiling.

  ‘Yes, I can be arsed.’

  So that’s that.

  We’re on for Saturday.

  * * *

  (Incidentally, I don’t usually offer unsolicited advice but if I did it might include: don’t take your cat to the vet on the day of a date. If she claws your face while you’re putting her in the carrier you’ll show up with a plaster across the bridge of your nose, which will make you look like a dick. Not just a dick – a dick’s dick.)

  HARRIET

  I’d rather have gone to the pub. Not that I need to drink myself into oblivion because Cockweasel turned out to be married with kids (I’m so over Damian, as you can tell) but after a week of double shifts I’d have preferred a log fire and a cheeky bottle of red. Still, it’s not every day a nice-looking bloke invites you to go star gazing and like Nan says – try everything once except incest, folk dancing and bin juice.

  It turns out Hampstead Observatory is a ten-minute walk from the tube. The dome is near Whitestone Pond, set back from the road, almost hidden from view. It was a chilly evening in late October. A dozen nerd-wazzocks in anoraks were milling around the dome, taking turns to peer through the telescope. No sign of Extra Cinnamon Guy. For a moment, I wondered if I’d got the wrong date but then I saw him hurrying up the hill, waving. As he drew closer, I saw an Elastoplast on his face.

  ‘What happened to your nose?’

  ‘Let’s just say my cat hates the vet.’

  A cat. Tick.

  Tattoo. Tick.

  No aftershave. Double tick.

  Especially after You-Know-Who, the one I’m not mentioning.

  ‘What’s your cat’s name?’

  ‘Nelson.’

  ‘As in Horatio?’

  ‘As in Mandela.’

  Hmm. Bit too earnest for me?

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘He had a fight with the cat next door. And he’s a she.’

  ‘With a name like Nelson?’

  ‘She was a rescue. They told me she was a he but she wouldn’t let me pick her up for weeks so I couldn’t take her for a check-up. By the time she trusted me enough I’d settled on Nelson. I can hardly change it now. Plus I don’t want to saddle her with gender identity issues. She’s been through enough.’

  Sense of humour. Tick.

  ‘How did you choose her?’

  ‘I asked for the oldest cat, the one no one wanted to adopt.’

  ‘Sweet.’

  ‘Tell that to Nelson. She bites the hand that feeds – literally.’

  ‘Maybe she needs a cat shrink.’

  ‘Not on my salary.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I was going to get rich and famous writing musicals but ended up writing articles about double glazing.’ He moved on swiftly, changing the subject. ‘As for Nelson, I can hardly afford her elk meat let alone a shrink.’

  ‘You feed elk meat to your cat?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Imported from Sweden. She won’t eat anything else. Not even tuna unless it’s fishmonger-fresh.’

  ‘What kind of man won’t give sushi-grade tuna to his cat? I’m not sure I should have come.’

  ‘Pity. Saturn’s gorgeous.’

  He smiled and caught my eye. I thought he was going to say something cheesy like, ‘so are you’ but the moment passed. I followed his gaze to the skies. He pointed to a speck of light then told me waaaaaay more than I needed to know about Saturn. It’s the sixth planet from the sun, apparently, the second largest in the solar system.

  ‘There are nine rings.’

  ‘Made of what?’ I asked.

  ‘Ice particles. And rocky debris and dust.’

  ‘Space-dust? The stuff that fizzes on your tongue?’

  He nodded, deadpan.

  ‘They dig it out of space-dust mines then transport it from Saturn.’

  Not scared to be silly. Tick.

  I let him rattle on about astronomy, enjoying his enthusiasm. I like it when people talk about their passion.

  ‘What sign are you?’ I said.

  ‘Rabies.’

  A sceptic. Never mind. Most people are.

  ‘I’m guessing you’re Libran,’ I said.

  He arched an eyebrow.

  ‘Nice trick.’

  ‘I’m Aquarius. Highly intuitive. Also curious and prone to addiction.’

  ‘Ri-ight.’

  He didn’t ask follow-up questions so I let the subject drop and made an effort to quell The Thoughts that leapt into my mind. I’M GOING TO STRIP IN FRONT OF THESE MEN THEN HAVE SEX WITH ALL OF THEM!

  Luckily, the CBT woman told me sex can be a big part of intrusive thoughts, also weird ideas about religion, e.g., WHAT IF I’M JESUS COME BACK TO EARTH AS A WOMAN? But sexual identity is a common subject too, e.g., on my way here I thought I WISH I HAD A STRAP-ON SO I COULD FUCK THAT WOMAN ON THE ESCALATOR even though I haven’t had a crush on another female since Chloe Mills wore spray-on black jeans in the school production of Grease. Some sufferers have horrible thoughts about harming children or being attracted to them but it doesn’t mean they’re baby-killers or paedophiles, it’s just part of ‘Pure OCD’, also known as Pure O. With ‘ordinary’ OCD, people have compulsions and rituals, like washing their hands a zillion times, or not stepping on cracks in the
pavement. With Pure O, instead of battling intrusive thoughts with actions, people like me try to minimize the stress by performing repetitive mental rituals, like counting down from a hundred to one before getting into a lift. It’s usually a hidden disorder, so hard to treat, and some people go years without seeking help. So thank you for trying, CBT lady, but I’m no better than I was and the idea of telling Tom about it, or anyone else – even Nan – is a non-starter AND MAKES ME WANT TO PUSH PEOPLE UNDER A TRAIN!

  Avoiding Tom’s eye, I counted silently and slowly from ten down to one, composed myself then made a determined effort to shift my focus to the gaggle of astronomers. They wore fleeces, knitted hats and gloves.

  ‘Do we get a go on the telescope or only if we have a woolly hat?’ I said.

  We joined the queue. Trying to keep my mind busy, I began to talk about how, in astrology, Saturn is the planet of concentration, tenacity and ambition.

  ‘When it moves into your sign it brings success. So next year is going to be busy for me.’

  ‘In the café?’ said Tom.

  ‘No, I’m an actress. The café pays the bills.’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ he said. ‘The day-job’s keeping me going till my musical opens on Broadway and I’m a Tony-award-winning millionaire.’

  ‘What could possibly go wrong?’

  ‘I know, right?’

  ‘Is it a big cast, like Hamilton or Les Misérables?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It’s a six-hander about dysfunctional families. It’s called “They Fuck You Up”.’

  ‘From the Larkin poem?’

  He seemed pleased I’d got the reference but I was glad he didn’t make a big deal out of my knowing a bit of poetry. Cockweasel used to take the piss, as if a girl from Walthamstow had no business knowing anything except dog racing and jellied eels.

  ‘Would I have seen you in anything?’ said Tom.

  My least favourite question, especially since The Thoughts put paid to me going to auditions.