Charlotte Street

by Danny Wallace

  ‘So that’s it? It’s all signed off?’

  ‘It’s his place. His money. There was never a question. But look, someone might not take this place for months, or years. That old pet shop round the corner’s been on the market for ever, so there’s still the flat! I didn’t want to worry you. You’re my best mate, Jase. We could be here ages.’

  I had little savings, I had little prospects, and now I had even less hope. It was one thing me believing something good could come out of that night on Charlotte Street. But it was quite another knowing that even Dev had thought it was stupid all along. I felt ridiculous, tricked, hopeless.

  I looked around the flat, knowing we wouldn’t be here ages. I wouldn’t, at any rate. So I went out, angry, and I drank, angrily, and when I didn’t want to go home but I didn’t know where else to go I made a phone call and she answered and she said, ‘Come round. Now.’

  And The Girl?

  The Girl was just a dream, and in the words of my great friend Devdatta Patel, dreams are unrealistic.

  ‘What can be expected to be dropped is held in the hands, but what is in the heart I shall die with.’

  Traditional Shona Tribe proverb, Zimbabwe

  Hello. Seventeen of you, eh? That’s enough for a party. We could get drunk and not speak to each other, then go home and blog about it.

  Martin in Malaysia: I know you’ll like this. On the tube this morning, at Goodge Street, I remembered an advert I saw in one of the free papers recently where a man professed his love for a stranger.

  I don’t usually look, because I get far too embarrassed. And I worry one day I’ll see one that I convince myself is for me and that will be it; I will have to marry whoever it is out of sheer gratefulness.

  Mind you, you can make anything sound like it’s for you. Girl in a red top. I saw you from the window of the VD clinic. I’d been given bad news but you brightened my day. You’d be so thrilled all day, you’d be asking your friends, ‘What do you wear if you’re meeting someone with VD?’

  Anyway, the one I saw said this:

  I saw you. You don’t use overhead handles on the train.

  Hoped it would jolt and you would fall to me. But no.

  At first I smiled and turned the page because you do get quite used to things like this in those papers. Like reading about people who meet in weird ways whose write-ups always end with the sentence ‘the pair recently announced their engagement’, or words along those lines.

  But I wonder if that man felt he was taking a risk, the day he wrote about the girl with no overhead handles. I wonder if his heart beat faster at the possibilities he was hoping to open up.

  Because isn’t to be pursued, to be thought of as special, to be needed by someone somewhere, whether we know them yet or not, all any of us actually wants? To have our story end in a sentence exactly like ‘the pair recently announced their engagement’?

  Maybe I’m having a weak moment. I’m pretty sure we’re all going to end up having to get cats to keep us company anyway.

  And I fucking hate cats.

  Sx

  TWENTY

  Or ‘Cold, Dark and Yesterday’

  One month and one day passed by with little incident.

  I’d done nothing, really. Nothing except find myself a little flat on Blackstock Road. It had been easy enough to move out. Nine boxes, a telly, a laptop and a rolled-up duvet. Not much to show for a life lived, but you don’t really mind when it all fits into the back of an Addison Lee.

  My savings had dwindled, of course. They’d always been good dwindlers, my savings. Naturally adept at dwindling. Seems the less you’re paid the more proactive your savings become, dwindle-wise.

  But I’m procrastinating. Because like I say, a month had passed with only a few events to distinguish it or set it apart. Though I suppose, if pressed, there were two in particular.

  The first was the phone call.

  ‘Jason?’ it began, the voice familiar. ‘It’s Estonia Marsh.’

  ‘Oh,’ I’d said, and that was the best I could do.

  ‘I’m so sorry to call you like this. I got your number from London Now. Are you not there any more?’

  ‘I’ve … I still freelance, but no, not really.’

  ‘Listen,’ she said.

  Turns out Estonia had been having dinner with her producers, and they’d started talking about how they met their partners, and Estonia said, ‘Oh, I met this guy recently …’ and now her producers on Wake Up Call wanted to get me in to the studios on the South Bank to help me with the search.

  ‘It’d be fantastic!’ she said. ‘A million viewers, you’ve got a photo, someone will know her, and we’ll get you together on the show!’

  ‘Oh!’ I said, stalling. ‘Well, that’s an interesting—’

  ‘Because your friend had said you’d already put an ad in the paper, and tried to find her by different means, so this would just be stepping it up a level, wouldn’t it? It’d be great fun!’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah. I’m not sure, though.’

  ‘There’d probably be a few quid in it, too – sometimes we hook up with the papers or the weekly mags and they get the contributor to write their story up. I’m sure we could fix you a commission with the Mail, or someone?’

  ‘I … can I think about it?’ I’d said.

  ‘Sure! Yes. Of course,’ she said, clearly disappointed I hadn’t been as effusive as they’d clearly been after three bottles of Pinot Noir. ‘I mean, personally speaking, I really think you should do it. Because here’s the thing: you don’t know how your story ends yet!’

  And though I toyed with the idea – though I thought maybe my life might yet end up as one of those stories you read in the tabloids that end with a wonderfully cheesy final line – I knew toying was all I was doing.

  Because just hours later, as the day wound down and just minding my own business at the bottom of Poland Street, the universe had sent me a warning shot. A no-you-don’t.

  There, up ahead, leaving the NCP … the unmistakable rear lights of a light green Facel Vega, exhaust humming away, condensation clouding the back window, hiding me from Damien, and Damien from me.

  I kept my head down nevertheless, nipped down D’Arblay, and quickly made my way to the tube.

  Back to this morning.

  There was another one in the tabloids today.

  It was love at first sight for Interflora delivery man Jon Bindham, when he delivered a romantic bouquet of flowers to office worker Laura Davis.

  So much so that the very next day he returned with ANOTHER huge bouquet of flowers – this time from HIM!

  Today they will tie the knot in Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire.

  ‘I took a chance!’ says Jon, 30.

  What he didn’t know was that the original flowers were not from a prospective suitor – but from Laura’s dad, congratulating her on passing her driving test!

  ‘I suppose it proves sometimes you should say it with flowers!’ jokes Jon.

  Love those last lines. I wonder if people actually say them.

  I took a mug from the cupboard and realised it was one of Dev’s.

  I hadn’t seen him since I moved out, partly because I had so much to sort out, but partly because I was embarrassed. Embarrassed at how I’d behaved, embarrassed because in all the time he was going through that stuff with his dad I’d never once thought to ask how things were going, was he okay, how was the shop? Embarrassed too, because I’d been tricked, and only tricked because I’d been starting to mildly obsess over a girl I’d never met and now never would and how stupid that made me feel.

  But maybe a drink would be nice, maybe offer an apology, for running out on him like that, maybe end up at the Den, for old time’s sake.

  Not today, though.

  The Kicks were on T4. Though my portable fizzed and crackled, I could tell Rick Edwards really seemed to love them.

  ‘Brighton’s brightest,’ he called them.

  Things were going pretty well for the bo
ys. I know I’d only met them a couple of times, and I know they’d met a hundred journalists since, from proper papers, too, like The Times and the Guardian, who adored these rock ‘n’ roll upstarts (Uh-oh! Move over Arctics! screamed the NME; Things are about to Kick off, warned Q) but I’d always feel a little linked to them. And I kept looking to the sides of the screen, just in case I could see Abbey, or a hint of electric blue shoe.

  I hadn’t spoken to Abbey since that night. I’d tried, but I’d failed. It had taken me a while, but I’d realised, slowly and grimly, what I’d done. What right had I had to do what I did? Not a day had gone by that I hadn’t kicked myself for it. Of course she’d be angry with me. If she’d wanted people to know about her songs, she’d … well … she’d have sung them. Something about that night – the way the CD had been poking out of her bag, willing itself seen, and all right after we’d talked of life, and ambition and dreams … it made me feel like what I was doing was undeniably right. A favour.

  Now I could see that it wasn’t. I could see now that I’d stumbled into someone’s private life, and … no, not stumbled. Stumbled implies something accidental. No, I’d broken in. I’d kicked the door down; like a burglar, I’d rifled through her secrets, and then I’d taken them, and worse … I’d shown them to the world. That wasn’t fair.

  So, after a few unanswered texts and a couple of unpicked-up calls, I took to keeping myself to myself. In some ways, it was nice. I was reading more. Eating Iceland meals-for-one and mindlessly reading the ingredients while Radio 4’s ‘Play for Today’ was on. Things were calm, I guess, and I was resigned to life. Because once again, I’d seen where hope could get me. Better to live without it, I reasoned. Better to be surprised when something good happens, than to try and make it happen yourself and fail.

  I turned the telly off. For the first time in days, I had somewhere to be.

  ‘So,’ said the man. ‘You’ve been out of the business how long?’

  ‘About eighteen months.’

  ‘Not gone well?’

  ‘It’s gone fine. I’m ready for a new challenge.’

  ‘How do you approach a challenge?’

  ‘Well, I’m a teamplayer, though I’m equally suited to working alone.’

  ‘And you worked here, at St John’s?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You decided to leave, why?’

  ‘It should all be there, in my file.’

  ‘Ah yes.’ A pause. ‘Weaknesses?’

  ‘Chocolate.’

  ‘Ha ha! Lovely sense of humour!’

  ‘Thank you. But seriously, I’m a perfectionist, that’s probably my main weakness.’

  ‘Terrific.’ The man looked at me. ‘So how are you fixed the week after next?’

  I was going to be a supply teacher.

  There was nothing wrong with that, I know. I had the form, the qualifications, the experience, and people weren’t exactly lining up to spend more time at St John’s. Yeah, so it was a bit of a step back, seeing as I’d been deputy head of department, and it was a step in a different direction from the one I’d always told myself I wanted to be going, but it was work. Work I could do, too.

  And being back in St John’s had reminded me of someone.

  Not Dylan Bale, either, which had been my fear. How embarrassing a meltdown would have been. How embarrassing to have to flinch every time I passed a window, and all thanks to a kid and an air rifle.

  No. I was thinking of Matt.

  Where had he gone? I’d texted him a few times, followed it up with a call, but his number had been disconnected and I didn’t know what to do. Had I done something? Let him down, too?

  I wanted to talk to him, though. The stuff with Dev, the stuff with Abbey … well, he knew them. He might have advice.

  And then, on the way back from St John’s, I found myself either by accident or design at the Sainsbury’s by Angel tube, browsing the falafel, and I realised just how close I was to Chapel Market.

  It was 10 a.m. and men in England tops were drinking pints under a George cross outside the Alma with their dogs.

  I knew where the garage was: just beyond the DIY shops and chicken cottages of Chapel Market, tucked down a side-street with a giant hand-painted mot’s & repair’s on its wall.

  As soon as I got there, I instantly felt that creeping feeling of uncertainty and unease that washes over me, sickeningly, when surrounded by men. Not men in general. Not men in pubs or men in suits or men like your dad or mine. Real men, with black-bruised nails from car doors or hammers, and swallows on their wrists, and chain-link gold swaddling thick leather necks.

  I prepared to drop my aitches.

  ‘All right?’ I said, to the main one, as he watched over the others, the one I should probably call the ‘gaffer’ or something.

  He put down a tool I couldn’t identify and wiped his hand on the side of his overalls. He looked exactly the way a child would draw a mechanic.

  ‘Matt around?’ I said, attempting to seem disinterested, or at the very least distracted by a car they had up on that machine that makes cars go up that I’ve only ever seen in places like this.

  ‘Matt?’ he said.

  ‘Fowler?’ I said, grateful he had a surname out of East-Enders. ‘Matt Fowler?’

  ‘Matt Fowler?’ he said. ‘You know him?’

  This, I realised, would be one of those conversations that goes better if dealt with exclusively in questions.

  ‘Is he about?’ I said, hoping we’d soon start dealing in facts.

  ‘Warren?’ shouted the man, turning. ‘Is Matt about?’

  I looked over at Warren, who started laughing.

  ‘Dean?’ he shouted, to another man, fiddling with a radio at the back. ‘Where’s Matt?’

  Dean started laughing and nodding.

  ‘He’s with his university chums!’ he said, and they all started laughing together.

  ‘He’s where?’ I said.

  ‘Matt hasn’t been here in about a month. He had an epiphany!’

  They all started laughing again. Warren got back to work, shaking his head and smiling at the word ‘epiphany’.

  ‘Do you know where he is?’ I said.

  ‘I imagine he’s gone boating,’ said the man. ‘Or, whatcha-call it … scrumping. No, not scrumping. Cramming. For his “finals”!’

  I wasn’t sure if they were taking the piss, and if they were, out of who? Matt? Or me? Me, with my clean clothes and delicate little never-done-a-day’s-work grease-free hands.

  ‘Is Matt … at university?’ I asked.

  How? You don’t just go to university. You study, you do exams, you get A-Levels, you apply. You sit down and go through prospectuses and when you realise you have no idea what you’re doing you end up doing Geography at Cardiff.

  ‘He has, if you count a room above a chippie as a university,’ said the man, and he cleaned his fingers, and smiled at me.

  This would be the end of our conversation.

  I trudged back to Blackstock Road.

  When I told you a minute ago I’d found myself a little flat on Blackstock Road, I mean I found myself living in a little flat on Blackstock Road.

  And it was with someone.

  It’s not something I’d have bet on happening, post-Tropicana. But I needed a friend and now she was the closest I had.

  I’d stormed round that night, a beacon of rage and injustice and disappointment, lost and sad and alone.

  ‘Jesus, Jason, what’s going on?’ she’d said, answering the door, and I’d pushed past her, into the dim and narrow hallway in this flat it’d taken so long to find in the dark, just as it had done once before, when all this started.

  Zoe and I talked long and hard that night. She apologised for what she’d said about my career and whether or not I should look for it in Highgate Cemetery. She’d been under a lot of pressure, she said, and the last thing she needed was what happened today, and London Now was in pretty deep trouble, might only have a few months left, plus Ro
b the Reviews Ed had been on at her about coming back, and blah blah blah blah blah.

  I knew what she’d done because I’d done it myself. Sometimes you hurt someone who’s hurt you, because it’s like a tiny victory. Your own little PS on an event that still stings.

  So we talked about that day. But also, slowly, we talked about what had happened that night, in that other life.

  ‘We were friends who sort of took advantage of each other,’ she said, and while once the guilt would have flashed through me in an instant now there was a dull ache of resignation.

  ‘It was my fault,’ I’d said.

  ‘It was mine, too. I just didn’t know what to do. I loved you once, as a friend, I mean. It hurt to see you in pain. I mean it almost physically hurt. I was trying to make you see that everything would be okay. Like, if you left your job, I could throw some work your way, maybe you could find what you wanted to do. But there was never any question of what you should do with Sarah. I never said anything about that but then you kissed me and I don’t know how it didn’t stop there but it didn’t.’

  Part of me had always wondered what would have happened if Zoe and I had got together afterwards. But what I wanted was Sarah. It would never have worked, the two of us, the shame and the recriminations, the soul-slashing guilt was just too claustrophobic. It wouldn’t have been honest. It wasn’t the plan. We couldn’t just improvise our way into it.

  But what about now? I thought, looking at her.

  I’d given Zoe most of whatever I had in my account at the time to cover things. This wasn’t a permanent thing, of course; it was just until I found my feet again. I just hadn’t known what else to do when I’d moved out of Dev’s and craved something familiar, something warm. I needed to tell Sarah I was moving, but how could I tell her where I’d ended up? And when I decided just to play it vague, this happened:

  Me: ‘Hey, so I’m just checking in, I got the invite, I meant to RSVP, and—’