I ran into X__ a few weeks later. She showed up at lunch, tagging along with L__ and C__ , who I’d heard she’d moved in with after splitting up with J__ , but if I’m honest, I almost didn’t recognise her. She looked so different. I could tell L__ had done her make-up, because their faces looked identical and her clothes were definitely a bit of C__. Black, black, black, black, black. She’d pierced her nose, straightened her hair, might’ve been wearing a corset but what did I care? Dump boyfriend, get makeover was such standard procedure it barely warranted mentioning. I accepted the new X__ like I’d accepted the old X__. With minimal interest.
After lunch I ran a couple of debt collecting errands, popping in to the ʻofficesʼ of ʻmagazinesʼ that owed me money, when, as is so often the way with these of things, I ran into slap bang J__. I was about to blurt out how weird it was to bump into him because I’d literally just seen X__ but then I took in his change in appearance. Not as dramatic as X’s, or at least he was still wearing the same clothes. Exactly the same clothes, by the looks of things. The elastic of his skinny jeans sagged at the knee, a couple of diamanté pieces were missing from the dragon design on his t-shirt, his trainers were dirty and most shocking of all, the Nike tick on the side of his head that had grown out.
J__ seemed overly pleased to see me. He gave me a long hug and when he spoke, made earnest eye contact. Much friendlier than usual, taking more interest in me than he’d ever done before. Asked about India, asked about the writing, said he was gonna buy one of my books (yeah right), the whole preamble… But I knew where it was headed.
— Have you, he said, — spoken to X__?
When he said her name, a shadow passed over his face, highlighting the crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes and indents between his eyebrows.
I shrugged and said, — You guys not speaking then?
J__ nodded, shook his head, nodded and said, — I don’t know, I really don’t know.
He started trying to thank me for not saying anything about the Iranian but he was stumbling over his words and was hard to understand. I caught ‘the only one’, ‘second cousin’ again and ‘undermined trust’ before I stopped him.
— It wasn’t my business, I said.
J__ carried on talking, saying how he loved X__ , he’d let her down, he was an idiot, he couldn’t lie to her anymore, he thought they were friends but that maybe she had something mentally wrong with her, he didn’t trust C__ , he didn’t trust L__. It was clear he wasn’t going to let the opportunity of speaking to someone who knew X__ pass, so I suggested the Lamb & Lion, a charming ex-BNP boozer that was always empty and which I very much enjoyed spending time in. J__ got the drinks in, two pints each, and we took a corner table.
— We were friends more than anything else, J__ said, instantly calmed by two big gulps of flat lager. — That’s why we stayed in it for so long. Even when it was obvious it wasn’t working. We actually liked each other, that’s why.
— I’m sure you guys will work something out, I said.
— I dunno, J__ said, — I loved her you know? But I don’t know, if I’d any idea of the way she’d act over us splitting up I never would’ve got into anything with her in the first place. Everything from Farzeen to the baby flung in my face, like it’d never been talked about, as if nothing we’d said before counted for anything.
— So you guys got an abortion? I said.
J__ looked at me like he didn’t understand the question.
— It was, she was, mental, he said. — She just tore the thing to shreds. I said I’d take her to Italy but I never took her to Italy. She gave me blowjobs all the time but I wouldn’t give her cuddles. She told me I’d ruined her life, that I had blood on my hands. She got in touch with my boss. She got me fired! I mean can you believe that shit? Five in the morning messages accusing me of rape, rape for fuck’s sake? We were going out!
— That doesn’t preclude rape, I said, unable to stop myself chiming in on my favourite topic.
— I never raped her, J__ said.
— People have different definitions of rape, I said. — You know, sometimes if a person tells a big enough lie while having sex with you, it might not be rape in the eyes of the law but it is still kinda rape, because it’s like you’re not who you say you are.
— I. Did. Not. Rape. My. Girlfriend, J__ said.
— Ok, I said. — Sorry.
— I went to her dad’s funeral and now she’d never come to my dad’s funeral, I mean, what the fuck? Who wants to go to someone who raped her’s dad’s funeral? It’s like…
J__ slapped his forehead with his fingertips.
— Crazy. Crazy! I tried to engage, I really did. I replied to all the mental emails with rational questions, like, ‘why does this matter now when it didn’t before?’, ‘yes of course I loved her’, ‘no I wasn’t seeing anyone else’, ‘yes, we’d always be friends’, but it didn’t matter what I said because I knew her fuckwit flatmates were pouring poison about me into her ear.
— L__ and C__? I asked.
— Fucked in the head, J__ said.
— C__’s alright, I said. — She’s funny.
J__ raised an eyebrow.
— So one minute it’s all hell breaking loose and then I get this text, like, ‘it’s done’.
— What’s done? I said.
— Exactly, J__ said, — exactly. I called, no answer. I texted. I even went round to the house because it’s like, I needed to know what’d happened and I could hear someone in there but whoever it was wouldn’t open the door. No one would talk to me. No one.
— Sometimes things just get fucked up, I said, the sentiment sounding wise as a thought but coming out sounding kinda stupid.
J__ finished the dregs of his first pint and slid it to the edge of the table.
— I don’t know man, he said, starting his second pint. — It’s like one minute I’m gonna be a dad, which I didn’t have any say in, and next minute I’m not and I don’t know why. I’m telling you my head was a mess. No one would chat to me or tell me anything. No one. And I thought about you, because, you know, it was really safe the way you didn’t say anything about… J__ waggled his eyebrows. — But you were away and everyone else just shut down on me.
I’d seen this group of friends do this to people before. One minute someone was in, the next they were out. School playground rules preserved far beyond school playground boundaries.
— The only person who’d chat to me was P___. P___ was a proper mate. Didn’t say a word about any of the shit that’d happened only that the D must’ve been good.
J__ laughed the laugh of a man for whom erections are a thing of the past.
— He listened to all my shit, helped me sort out the flat, got me a gig with this agency who sent me round to people’s flats, like old people and shit, to give them trims. It wasn’t salon prices, more like thirty, forty quid, but it kept me going. Anyway eventually P___ gets sick of listening to me bang on about X__. He gives it to me straight. Says X__ is damaged goods, that he’d seen her round and she’d gone whacko anyway so whatever things had been between us before, I was better off out of it. So I’m like, okay, I hear you, you know? It’s like months obsessing over what? But I’m, like, so out of the game I don’t even know and P__ tells me the thing to do is get on Tinder, like ‘this is what you wanna be doing mate’.
J__ picks up his phone from the table and holds up the blank screen.
— He shows me his account and there were some proper sorts. Girls coming straight out and asking for it, no strings. And peng. So, we were pretty pissed and just went for it, made this jokes profile like with pictures of me skiing and that one of me with Kylie Minogue. I wasn’t taking any of it too seriously but then next morning I wake up, completely forgetting about making any profile and when I switch my phone on it’s like ding, ding, ding! Keisha, Cara, Danielle. You ever done this?
I shake my head. — No.
J__ finishes his second pint as I’m starting mine.
/> — Another? he said.
I demurred. He strode towards the bar, returning minutes later with a pint and whiskey chaser. He knocked back his whiskey and settled in his seat, his manner shifting, and for the first time in the conversation, sounding relaxed.
— Pretty soon I’m pinging messages back and forth with this one girl and we make a plan to meet. China Town on a Saturday afternoon. I wasn’t expecting sex, I wasn’t expecting anything. I wasn’t taking it seriously, you know, but a couple of hours in and we’re at it in the Burger King toilets.
A big grin spread across J__’s face.
— Sorry. He said. — Anyway, my point is, is that it was nice to have the company of a woman whose chief desire was something other than cutting off me bollocks.
He raised his pint. I met his glass with mine.
— Anyway this girl ends up coming back to mine and we’re at it all night. In the kitchen, on the sofa, in the hall. Wake up in bed next morning and bam! A text from the Ex. Like she knew. All it said was, ‘How are you?’ but I’m telling you man, it threw me. Not a word for months and then… I'm not exaggerating when I say I had a full on panic attack. I used to get them when I was a kid. Super Skunk. But I haven’t smoked in years. Had to lock myself in the bathroom and this girl’s, like, knocking and asking me what’s wrong and I just didn’t come out, you know? Stayed in there ’til she left.
— J__ , I said.
— I know, I know, he said. — Terrible. But anyway, once she’s gone, I calm down a bit. I jump in the shower and then, sorry to be crass but I get this banging hard on. It was like someone had given me Viagra or something, like something had taken over my body, like something had taken over my mind. Because I was suddenly remembering all this shit that I’d kind of forgotten before. Like the night me and X__ got together and I fingerbanged her in Spoons. D’you know that story?
I nodded, I did, curious to see where J__ was going with all this.
— And not just sex stuff, other stuff. Fighting. When she threw my Blackberry in the sea in Southend and her smashing up the bathroom and then all this stuff that never happened, like us on a cruise liner in the Arctic and in a wood that was kinda the woods behind my parents house, but wasn’t. It was like a flashback or a trip or something. The two of us fucking in this ancient woodland with all, like, elves and shit and yeah, J__ laughs, — I just sploodge everywhere but then I’m telling you, it was bare freaky. I’ve never felt anything like that before. It was like my mind was riding on this, like, monorail. I get out the shower and go to the bedroom. No towel, dripping wet, and I pick up the phone and I call her. I’m telling you, it was really weird, whatever was going on. It was something strong.
J__ and I finish our drinks at the same time. J__ gets to his feet.
— What do you say we switch to white? he said.
I shrugged in agreement. He went to the bar, I went for a wee, taking my phone with me and sending a couple of texts. One to C__ telling her I’d bumped into J__ and it seemed like he’d lost it. I returned to the table where J__ had poured two giant glasses out of a bottle.
— So I’m like, ‘hello, are you there?’, J__ continues without missing a beat. — And suddenly we’re talking, chatting on the phone like normal, like nothing has happened. I’m making jokes, she’s laughing at them and I’m like ‘woah’. We talk for like an hour and then, just as we’re getting off the phone, she drops it in. Some foxes had made a nest in her garden.
— Foxes? I said.
— Yeah, he said. — Foxes. Random I know but that’s what she said. Two hours later I’m stood in X__’s kitchen looking at these foxes, only there’s not much to see. I can make out the white tips of their tails and bits of fur but they’re basically hidden behind stinging nettles.
— That garden, I said, — is a disaster.
— From what the Ex’d said on the phone I expected a fox extravaganza, J__ said, waving his arms like he was conducting an imaginary orchestra. Pissed. — You know, all singing, all dancing but whatever, it was nice to be there and if a couple of foxes at the end of the garden was the excuse we needed to make friends then I was glad of the foxes. The flatmates were being proper dizzy though. C__ kept going on about how they were in love then L__ said she thought they were pregnant and when she said it they all three turned to look at me and it was super awk. But then it was kinda okay again. Like it was forgotten. So we sit around shooting the shit and d’you know what? It was alright. It was like none of any of the fucked up shit that happened had happened, like old times again. The girls persuaded me to stay for dinner, got some beers in and I end up passing out in front of the telly, then, get this, I wake and all three of them are there, standing over me, like they were watching me sleep, so I’m like shit, you know? But then X__ is all like, ‘shhh’ and ‘follow me’, so we all four of us go through the kitchen and she points out at the garden and there they were. It was kinda amazing. The foxes were out on the lawn, up on their hind legs and they were dancing. I’ve never seen anything like it, well maybe in those picture books, you know, where the animals wear clothes and go around doing shit. It was like that. They were doing, like, eskimo kisses. It was amazing actually, seeing them close up like that, and then before I knew it, we are holding hands and the flatmates are just standing there watching and X__ leans in and I think she’s gonna kiss me and I’m thinking of all the reasons I shouldn’t — the baby, Tinder girl — but then she just does what the foxes are doing. She gives me an eskimo kiss.
J__ closed his eyes and nuzzled the air, wasted but then I wasn’t feeling too sober myself.
— Anyway, he said, setting his elbows on the table and topping up our glasses, — I didn’t hear from X__ for the rest of week and I don’t hear from Tinder girl either. But I was feeling alright about things. I was pleased things were cool between me and X__ and figured that as far as Tinder girl was concerned, a hook up was a hook up. But then, that Friday, the Ex texts and, you guessed it…
J__ leaves the sentence hanging.
— What? I said.
— So does Tinder girl, J__ said. — And it’s such a friendly, straight up message that I’d have to be a total dickhead not to reply, I mean, I fucked this girl, you know? So I write back apologising for a being a weirdo, said that I had some stuff going on, ‘it's not you it's me’ kinda thing, and I press send but then, the same second, X__ calls. I freaked, thought I’d sent the message to her by mistake and meant to decline the call but pressed the wrong button and then she’s just on the line yammering away about C__ being right about the foxes being pregnant because they’d woken up to babies and she was like, ‘they’re so cute’ and ‘you gotta come see’, and I was like, ‘errrr, I dunno’, but I knew she wasn’t gonna take no for an answer so I tell her, ‘I’ll swing by later on’, with zero intention of actually doing it. The phone hockey had weirded me out. Anyway, when I got off the phone there’s a text from Tinder girl suggesting a drink at the Nelson that evening. First, I was like, maybe I shouldn’t, I mean me and X__ had almost kissed and I wasn’t exactly sure what was, you know, going on… But then, I don’t know, I just thought about what P__ said and thought, ‘what are you doing man?’ It’s over, you know. We were friends, or trying to be and that was good but there wasn’t gonna be any funny business. Not after everything. So I texted Tinder girl, ‘see you there’, and figured I’d text X__ later to cancel. Simple. Only it wasn’t simple because half an hour later I get another call. Hysterical. Apopo-, apoplectic. Is that how you say it? I swear, for a second I thought I’d looped back in time because X__ was just hyperventilating into the receiver and I could hear the others in the background telling her to hang up and then, when she could talk again, she just kept saying, ‘dead, dead, he’s dead’, and the only person I could imagine she was talking about was her fucking dad. She was just crying and crying and I don’t know, I guess that’s the thing, isn’t it? Once you’ve been through something with someone, when you think they need you, you go.
J__
’s face creased with concern.
— I ran all the way, he said — And you know what I was thinking? I was thinking, ‘here we go again’. Arrived expecting the worst and knocked on the door. Half of me was wondering what carnage I was about to walk into and the other half of me was thinking I should text Tinder girl and cancel but then the door opened and man, the sight of three women who’d spent an hour or more crying, all like hugging each other and swaying back and forth, that’s a sight no one needs to see. But what can I do? I’m there and X__ throws herself into my arms, like, ‘I’m so glad you’re here’, and ‘thank you, thank you’, and I’m telling her it's gonna be alright and I’m like, looking out into the back garden, which is when I see it and mate, it was brutal.
— What was? I said.
— The fox, J__ said. — One of the baby foxes. Swear down I’ve never seen so much blood. The women were wailing about how I had to do something because I was a man and how I should know what to do because I grew up in the countryside so what choice did I have? I went out to have a look at this thing. Blood coming out of its mouth, its nose, its eyes, its ears. The women wouldn’t come out, huddled in the doorway like, ‘the father killed it because it was the runt of the litter’. I nudged it with my trainer and then this hiss came from the stinging nettles. The mum. I saw her, teeth bared, tail wrapped round the rest of the babies.
Man Hating Psycho Page 5
