Three's a Crowd

by Simon Booker

  ‘I don’t know, Dad, why wouldn’t you?’

  I smiled. He was playing me at my own game – answering a question with a question.

  ‘Does that mean I’m invited?’

  ‘Yes, Dad. You’re invited.’

  Taking a break from texting, Harriet looked from my face to Tom’s then back again. ‘Are you two always like this?’

  We replied simultaneously.

  ‘Like what?’

  She rolled her eyes.

  ‘Never mind.’

  The three of us lapsed into an awkward silence broken by Tom.

  ‘I had a visitor this morning. My grandfather.’

  My stomach gave a lurch.

  By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…

  ‘Seems like a decent bloke,’ said Tom. ‘He kipped on my sofa then disappeared while I was out for a run. Oh, and he told me my grandmother died after being run over by a hearse.’

  My knuckles whitened as I gripped the handle of my cup.

  ‘You’d be wise not to believe a word that man says.’

  Harriet looked up from her phone.

  ‘Is it true? About the hearse?’

  I shook my head. As more than one smart-arse has pointed out, I babble for a living. When being paid, I can prattle for hours but there are occasions when words fail me. This was one of those occasions.

  ‘He’s getting married,’ said Tom.

  I wasn’t surprised. When it comes to that man, nothing is too hard to believe.

  Harriet listened, bemused, as Tom and I discussed my father, a disgrace to mankind. Turned out he’d shown up out of the blue, which made sense, given that I’d recently changed the locks in Belsize Park. At first, I couldn’t understand how he’d found Tom’s address but then I remembered: I leave my address book on the kitchen table. He must have gone through it during one of his visits.

  ‘So you haven’t seen him in a while?’ said Harriet.

  ‘Not since I was little,’ said Tom.

  She turned to me.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Long story,’ I said. I had no intention of telling it – at least, not the unexpurgated version.

  ‘I’m in no hurry,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Perhaps another time.’

  Tom gave a tight smile.

  ‘Dad doesn’t talk about my grandfather. Ever.’

  ‘Because?’

  I took a sip of tea, playing for time. Once again, Tom was the first to crack.

  ‘George has two passports,’ he said. ‘One in the name of Lord Anthony Buckingham.’

  I nearly spat out my tea. Harriet’s eyes widened. She put her phone down.

  ‘He’s a lord?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s a con-man with delusions of grandeur.’

  ‘What sort of con-man?’ said Harriet.

  ‘The kind of parasite that attaches itself to wealthy widows then bleeds them dry before moving on. And that’s not even the worst thing about him.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Harriet.

  Tom turned to look me in the eye. He cleared his throat. Something on his mind.

  ‘He told me it’s Mum who has affairs, not you.’

  I blinked in surprise.

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘Not in so many words but that’s what he meant. Is it true?’

  Harriet pocketed her phone and started to get up from her seat. ‘You should probably have this conversation without me around…’

  I stayed her, placing a hand on her arm.

  ‘No need to go,’ I said. ‘But yes, it’s true.’

  Tom blew out his cheeks.

  ‘Is that why she’s in Goa? She’s having an affair?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘I believe her name is Alex.’

  He blinked. ‘Mum’s a lesbian?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘It might be best to ask her.’ I smiled at Harriet. ‘As you can see, we’re one big happy family.’

  Opening her mouth to reply, she was distracted by someone entering the café. I turned and saw a man in the doorway. In his mid-thirties, he was tall with thick blue-black hair, a candidate for the best-looking man I’d ever seen. Don’t ask me how, but I knew I was looking at the man who’d been texting Harriet.

  Or, as Tom and I would come to know him, that bastard, Damian.

  HARRIET

  Looking back, I should have known. He’d been texting all day, kicking off his campaign seconds before I went on-air for the first time.

  I love you

  Followed later by:

  I miss you

  Where are you?

  Finally, I cracked and told him I was with Richard and Tom in the Clissold Park café.

  You know the phrase ‘my heart leapt from my chest’? Well, that’s how it felt when Damian walked in. Instantly forgetting my sleepless night, I was filled with an energy I hadn’t felt in months. He was still tall, dark and handsome, obvs, and his eyes were as blue as ever, but he seemed somehow different. Thinner. Older.

  Sadder.

  He gave me a peck on the cheek, like nothing had happened – like he hadn’t lied through his teeth about being single – then he sat down and extended a handshake to Richard.

  ‘I’m Damian. I heard your show. Wasn’t Harriet great?’

  Richard gave a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  ‘Brilliant, as expected,’ he said before turning to Tom. ‘This is my son.’

  Tom mumbled something I couldn’t hear because of the blood thudding in my ears and the galloping of my heart. Handshakes all round. I couldn’t speak because I JUST WANT TO RIP YOUR CLOTHES OFF, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

  Damian took out an e-cigarette and started vaping.

  I don’t remember much about the next few minutes. I expect we all made small talk and I imagine it felt forced, as if two of us were waiting for the other two to piss off, which, of course, was exactly how Damian and I were feeling. My smile was wide enough to make my face ache, my whole body felt alive and tingly.

  And all I wanted was to be alone with him. Somewhere dark. Somewhere private. SOMEWHERE WITH A BLOODY BED.

  TOM

  As rivals go, Damian Vance was every man’s worst nightmare. Not only was he the best-looking bloke I’d seen outside of a Hollywood movie, he was also a maxillofacial surgeon.

  ‘I should probably know what that means,’ I said, managing half a smile. ‘But I don’t.’

  He grinned, revealing the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen.

  ‘It means I have a practice in Harley Street but travel a lot, mainly Africa and South America.’

  ‘As a dentist?’

  ‘Dentistry is part of it,’ said Damian. ‘I perform surgery on kids with severely disfigured faces.’

  Harriet chimed in.

  ‘He operates on children whose faces have been wrecked by injury, or diseases like cancer. Fixing defects in the head, neck, face and jaw. Gives them a shot at a normal life.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said, my cheeks hurting from the effort of smiling. ‘Very cool.’

  Dad refused to sound impressed.

  ‘Who pays?’

  ‘No one,’ said Damian. ‘It’s pro bono work. “Giving back” and all that.’

  In other words, the man was, like, half Ryan Gosling, half Mother Teresa. Which was wonderful. Just bloody wonderful. I was so happy for him.

  ‘Tell them about your dad,’ said Harriet, clearly thrilled at the opportunity to show off her ‘fascinating’ friend.

  ‘I’m not sure they’d be interested,’ said Damian.

  ‘Try us,’ said Dad, giving a smile as thin as my own. I don’t think Harriet or Damian caught the ice in his tone of voice but it wasn’t lost on me.

  It turned out that ‘Saint’ Damian was not only a wunderkind with a social conscience that put me to shame, he also had a colourful family history and had managed to rise above a chaotic upbringing th
at might easily have seen him spend his life behind bars. Now dead, his mother had been a drug addict and his father was the late Jack Vance, rumoured to have been one of the masterminds behind the Mayfair safe deposit robbery. A gang of ‘old geezers’ had drilled into the underground vault and stole millions of pounds’ worth of jewellery. No one knew exactly how much had been taken because the safe deposit accounts were shrouded in secrecy, but estimates ranged from five million to fifty million quid – maybe more. All but one of the perpetrators had been caught and banged up for years. ‘Alfie’ was the nickname the tabloids had bestowed upon the ringleader – the one that got away.

  ‘But “Alfie” was actually Damian’s dad, Jack,’ said Harriet proudly, as if claiming kinship with a cancer-curing scientist or an intrepid explorer of the North-West Passage. Damian tapped his e-cigarette.

  ‘That’s only according to rumour,’ he said. ‘Dad never confessed to me or anyone else.’ He flashed that dazzling smile again, turning in Harriet’s direction. She lowered her gaze, batting her eyelids, the way that Princess Diana used to look at a camera.

  ‘You must be proud of your father,’ said Damian. It took a moment before I realized he was talking to me. ‘What’s it like, having a famous DJ in the family?’

  I was about to reply when Dad intervened.

  ‘I don’t think Tom’s impressed by my job,’ he said. ‘If anything, he’s always found it embarrassing.’

  Had I? How would he know?

  ‘It must be fun,’ said Damian. ‘Sitting in a studio, playing records all day.’

  I felt my father tensing. Was Damian deliberately trying to put him down? To make his humble-bragging self seem even more important?

  ‘What about Tom?’ Damian turned to me. ‘What’s your line of work?’

  I hate that question, even more so since I jacked in the day-job.

  ‘Journalist by day,’ I said. ‘Songwriter by night.’

  Damian arched an eyebrow.

  ‘What kind of journalism?’

  ‘Tom’s writing for Double Glazing Monthly,’ said Dad.

  ‘Not any more,’ I said, my cheeks burning. ‘I’m focusing on song-writing.’

  ‘Anything I’d know?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’m writing a musical. Harriet’s helping. We’re doing a try-out performance for a producer soon.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Damian. ‘Can I come?’

  Harriet turned to me, her eyes shining.

  ‘Can he?’

  ‘Why not?’ I said.

  Well, what was I supposed to say?

  Damian turned back to my father.

  ‘Will you be there?’

  ‘I don’t think I’m invited,’ said Dad.

  ‘Of course you are,’ I said, hoping I didn’t sound as pissed off as I felt. ‘The more the merrier.’

  I would later discover that if you spent enough time on Google you could make a strong case that Jack Vance and ‘Alfie’ the Mayfair mastermind were indeed one and the same. So on top of everything else – the career, the looks, the cash – ‘Saint’ Damian had a bank robber father who’d gone to his grave without anyone finding his stash of diamonds. Worth millions, apparently.

  And the final straw? Damian owned a new silver Porsche, a poem on wheels in which he drove Harriet away without a backward glance.

  Meanwhile, in other news, my mother was a lesbian and highly promiscuous, which made a mockery of everything I’d believed about her and Dad for the last twenty years and apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the theatre?

  RICHARD

  From the moment Damian Vance walked into the café I could see he was going to be trouble. It wasn’t his looks or his job or even his vulgar car (and it certainly wasn’t his naff e-cigarette), it was the way Harriet gazed at him. The wattage of her smile transformed her face; her body language changed in an instant, as if she’d been infused with a fast-acting love serum.

  As Damian introduced himself with a bone-crunching handshake, I saw her cross her legs, flick her hair over her shoulder and moisten her lips with her tongue. Which meant only one thing. The days of softly softly were over. It was time to take my campaign to win her heart to a new level. No more Mr Nice Guy…

  I listened as Damian told us about his voluntary work in poor countries. I wish I could claim the man was a nauseating braggart but he seemed like a decent sort who’d overcome a tough start and made something of his life, which, of course, made everything a thousand times worse. Tom seemed cheesed off, lapsing into monosyllables, but Harriet hung on the new arrival’s every word and embarrassed him into insisting that he was only doing work many others did, too, and no, of course he wasn’t a hero, just an ordinary bloke who happened to have made a few quid and wanted to share his good fortune with people who weren’t so lucky.

  As for his dad, well, I suppose having a criminal in the family gave us something in common – except for the fact that Damian seemed relaxed talking about Jack Vance’s ‘career’, whereas I couldn’t bear to mention my father’s name.

  And when it came to George ‘dropping in’ to Tom’s flat, it was clear that trouble was brewing, but with no way of contacting the despicable old bastard, there was nothing I could do except hope he dropped dead soon and warn the lad to keep his distance. And worry.

  HARRIET

  In the weeks that followed, it felt as if life was on fast-forward. I was on a permanent high, keeping going thanks to a combination of coffee, exhilaration and adrenaline. The Silk FM show was a blast – I couldn’t believe they were actually paying me – and working with Richard was a laugh, especially when I hit my stride towards the middle of the second week. Jennifer and Pam seemed pleased with my performance. The feedback from listeners was generally positive, except for the inevitable trolls. Richard told me to ignore the haters and stay off social media, which I was happy to do. I’ve always thought Twitter was for people with more time than sense. He showed me some of the emails he gets every day, gleefully telling him that he’s the worst DJ ever.

  As for the way he behaved towards me, he was nothing but a gent; there was no hint of any Awkwardness. Meanwhile, The Thoughts were muted, flaring up only occasionally and not once while I was on-air. So the only downside was the early starts; the four-thirty alarm took a lot of getting used to, especially as I never seemed to get to bed early enough.

  (Okay, if you must know, I was spending masses of time in bed, just not enough time asleep, if you catch my drift…)

  Having left his wife, Damian was renting a luxury apartment in the West End, within walking distance of his Harley Street surgery. His Porsche was parked outside the flat and his corner shop was Selfridges. Luckily, the journey from Oxford Circus to Nan’s was a doddle on the Victoria Line, so I still popped in to see her every day while Damian was at his surgery. The journey gave me the chance to listen to myself on the tannoy. Hearing my voice never failed to give me the creeps. It felt like listening to myself talking from beyond the grave.

  The next train to Walthamstow will arrive in two minutes. Please stand clear of the platform edge.

  Best of all, Nan was on the mend, driving again, as well as following her other favourite, er, pursuits. (I could tell she was feeling better when I heard a buzzing sound from her room. If she was well enough to use her vibrator collection, she was well enough to get out of bed.) Mobile again, she told me to clear off and enjoy myself because I was only young once. ‘They are not long, the days of wine and roses…’

  Needless to say, I didn’t tell her I’d started seeing Cockweasel again. No point upsetting her. The fact that I’d gone back on my word was hard enough for me to take; there was no sense in disappointing the rest of my family too. But from the moment Damian sauntered into the café, with his dancing eyes and whiter-than-white smile, I was a goner.

  On top of everything else, there was Tom’s musical. Not gonna lie, I was still wrestling with my decision not to play the lead, Roxanne. It’s not that I was changing m
y mind (every time I thought about being onstage, The Thoughts started up again and I broke out in a sweat) but I hated myself for being so neurotic. The CBT woman’s advice kept popping into my mind, like a zillion times a day, but I still couldn’t bring myself to take it. ‘Exposure therapy’, where someone like me confronts fears head-on, may sound a doddle but the thought of actually doing it seemed as far off as ever – and with good reason, right? I mean, if your phobia is, say, spiders or rats, then how would you feel about lying still and letting them run all over your naked body? Exactly! And that’s how I felt about appearing in front of a live audience, even a small one, so it made sense to help Tom to fulfil his ambition, not mess it up by ruining his one shot at impressing an important producer.

  With the date of the showcase looming, I spent as much time as I could helping fine-tune the lyrics for They F**k You Up. When I couldn’t make it over to Dalston, I’d FaceTime Tom from wherever I was and we’d spend an hour or so revising the songs. He offered me a percentage, but I said thanks but no thanks. This was his show – I was just chipping in the occasional suggestion and was more than happy to suggest someone else to play the role of Roxanne, my mate from drama school. Her name was Zara. She was a teacher, married with kids and desperate not to think of herself as someone who ‘used to be an actress’. I know the feeling.

  To be honest, the return of Damian overshadowed pretty much everything, including any feelings I’d had – or thought I’d had – for Richard or Tom.

  Had I been on the rebound? Was I that fickle? Or was it like Nan says: nature abhors a vacuum? Either way, the good news was that neither Tom nor Richard seemed bothered by the fact that I was no longer ‘available’. It was as if that whole weird flirty-brunch-with-Richard-and-kissing-Tom-in-the-rain stuff had never happened.

  Phew!

  TOM

  I couldn’t believe it. She was acting as if nothing had happened. Okay, so we were hardly Romeo and Juliet but there was definitely more to us than a couple of cocktails and a cheeky snog. Wasn’t there? Or had I been benched?

  Right from our first date, at Hampstead Observatory, I’d felt a spark. True, it needed nurturing, but it was there. There was promise in the air, a sense of foundations being laid for something real, something with potential to last – and that’s without mentioning that I fancied the pants off her, or that the feeling seemed to be mutual. Unless I was behaving like a love-struck teenager. If so, what did that make Dad?