by Mike Gayle
It was at this point that Ginny decided to take the opportunity to go in search of her boyfriend. When she returned five minutes later, with a man in tow, she didn’t do an ‘Everyone, this is . . .’ because that would have been embarrassing. Instead she dragged him to the table, allowed everyone to do that kind of cool raise-of-the-eyebrows acknowledgement, then introduced him properly to our end of the table, which consisted of Zoë and Gershwin and me.
‘Ian,’ she said, gesturing to her man, ‘this is Zoë, her husband – and my old schoolfriend – Gershwin, and Matt, another old schoolfriend.’ She paused and gestured to us. ‘Everybody, this is Ian.’
Ian wasn’t what I had been expecting. Ginny always told me that she had a thing for guys who looked a bit seedy. I remember her once saying that her dream man was of the type whose natural instinct on waking up was to reach for a cigarette and a lighter. Ian wasn’t like that at all. He was tall and clean-looking, handsome, in a girlish way, and somewhere about my age.
‘So, you guys went to school with Ginny,’ said Ian.
‘Yeah,’ said Gershwin. ‘Seems like years ago.’
‘That’s because it was years ago,’ said Zoë, ruffling Gershwin’s hair fondly. ‘You’re an old man now,’ she teased. ‘Your schooldays are ancient history, mate.’
At the other end of the table a conversation about programmes that were on TV when we were kids gradually enticed Gershwin and Zoë to join in. I would have loved to participate in it so that I could show off my ability to name all the main characters in ‘old-skool’ cartoons like Battle Beyond the Planets (Mark, Jason, Princess, Tiny, Keyop), but I knew I’d never get a look in. Instead I started my own version of the conversation between Ginny, Ian and me. Ian was not only impressed by my Battle Beyond the Planets naming skills but he earned my respect and admiration by being able to recite all the words to the theme tune of Hong Kong Phooey, even the really difficult bit. That conversation eventually led to an entirely different one about music, and before I knew it we were waxing lyrical about our favourite female singer-songwriters, praising the practicalities of dark blue/black clothing and the importance of having exactly the same haircut every time you go to the barber’s.
Of all the new people I’d met that evening Ian was far and away my favourite. Eventually we left our favourite things and got on to the so-tell-me-about-yourself tack.
‘I’m a teacher, too, for my sins,’ said Ian. ‘That’s how Ginny and I met. I’m a supply teacher. You know, it pays the bills and all that.’
‘You’re not just a supply teacher!’ said Ginny, reprimanding him jokingly. ‘Ian’s doing a part-time Ph.D.,’ she explained. ‘Go on, Ian, tell him.’
He smiled, embarrassed by her maternal enthusiasm. ‘Er, yes, well, as Ginny’s hinted, I’m doing a part-time Ph.D. in meteorological studies. No use to man or beast, really. It’s just a load of nonsense. I’ve no idea why I’m doing it.’
‘Just ignore him,’ said Ginny impatiently. ‘He’s going to be a lecturer. I have no idea why he puts himself down like that.’
I could see what Ginny found attractive in him. Ian was both charming and funny but there was a shyness about him that bordered on vulnerable. Unlike me, however, he had no fear of meeting new people, and when I returned from a quick trip to the toilet, lan was holding forth to the table with tale after tale of the I’m-so-crap-honestly variety. Every time he’d finished one story he looked embarrassed for dominating the conversation and tried to encourage someone else to take centre stage. Of course, no one did, because even though they were all bursting with humorous stories of their own, no one wanted to have to follow a class act like his. So that was it. Ian. More Ian. ‘You’re so funny, Ian.’ ‘Can I buy you a drink, Ian?’ And, at the end of the night, ‘We really must swap numbers and meet up again, Ian.’ The funny thing was, it didn’t annoy me. I genuinely liked Ian too. In a lot of ways he reminded me of Elaine. She had exactly the same ability to hold people’s attention and make them her best friend in a second.
twenty-seven
It was ten to eleven and, as if by instinct, the majority of the table – i.e. Gershwin’s new friends – began to pull on their coats and jackets ready to go home.
‘Right, then,’ slurred Gershwin, who by this time was very much the worse for wear. ‘Who fancies going to a club?’
A collective look of horror had swept across all their faces – the look that crosses the majority of late-twenties/thirty-people couples when anyone suggests having a proper late night during the week. I could see their minds flashing forward to whatever hour they had to get up at for work. I could see them imagining going in feeling knackered, working all day feeling knackered and coming home feeling knackered. The very thought of being that knackered made them feel ill. I knew this look because I’d worn it myself regularly when Elaine and her friends ever suggested such midweek mayhem.
‘I’m in,’ I said to Gershwin, secure in the knowledge that I could sleep late tomorrow. ‘Definitely.’
‘Good,’ said Gershwin. ‘Who else?’
Apologies/excuses ran thus:
‘We’d love to, Gershwin,’ said Davina (of Davina and Tom), ‘but we’ve both got to be at work extra early tomorrow.’
‘Can’t do it tonight, mate,’ said Dom (of Dom and Polly). ‘I’ve got a meeting with my boss first thing and Polly’s got to be in Cheshire for ten thirty.’
‘We couldn’t even if we wanted to,’ said Christina (of Christina and Joel). ‘My sister won’t babysit past eleven thirty.’
‘No can do, birthday boy,’ said Neil (of Neil and Sarah). ‘I’m on call at the hospital tomorrow night and Sarah gets really grumpy if she doesn’t get enough sleep.’
‘I can’t either,’ said lan (of lan and Ginny). ‘I’m behind with my Ph.D. as it is.’
I was horrified at this one. ‘Come on, lan, mate!’ I said over enthusiastically. ‘You can’t go home – you’re my new best friend.’
‘I appreciate your candour,’ said lan, laughing, ‘but I can’t, honestly.’
Gershwin looked at Zoë hopefully. ‘What about you, babe?’
‘I’m probably going to regret this,’ said Zoë, sighing, ‘but as Charlotte’s staying at her gran’s tonight I can officially be a young person again. I’m up for it.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Gershwin. ‘I know how tired you are.’
Zoë leaned forward until her forehead was resting on his and kissed him. ‘Yeah, I’m sure. But I’m so tired I’ll probably fall asleep the second we get there.’
Gershwin kissed her back affectionately. ‘Right, then, so that’s two.’ He turned to Ginny. ‘What about you, Gin? Other than Matt, you’re my oldest friend. I haven’t seen you for years. You can’t just go home.’
‘I can’t stay out late on a school night,’ said Ginny, embarrassed to hear herself saying it. ‘The kids will know what I’ve been up to if I come in all bleary-eyed.’
I laughed and looked across at her. Our eyes met for just a second, and I knew, in that instant, that she was on the verge of changing her mind.
‘Please!’ begged Gershwin.
She exchanged glances with lan, who smiled and gave her a nod of encouragement as if to say, ‘Go on, live a little.’
‘I’ll just have to wear sunglasses all day!’ she said gleefully.
twenty-eight
Standing outside the Kings Arms in the freezing cold, watching our breath rise up into the sky, having said goodbye to Gershwin’s friends and lan, the four of us were at a loss what to do next.
‘Shall we just get a taxi into town?’ said Ginny.
‘Hadn’t we better have some sort of game-plan first?’ I suggested. ‘Where’s good to go at . . .’ I looked at my watch ‘ . . . ten past eleven on a Wednesday night?’
‘We could go to the Dome,’ said Zoë. ‘I think they have some sort of a student night on a Wednesday.’
‘We can’t go there!’ said Ginny, horrified. ‘I know for a fact that some of the
kids I teach go there!’
‘Where else is there?’ I asked Gershwin.
‘Dunno, mate,’ he said. ‘I haven’t been out clubbing in years.’
There was a long silence while we all got colder and – if everyone else was thinking like me – contemplated going home.
‘Forget going to a club,’ said Ginny. ‘Let’s nip to the off-licence, get some beers, go back to mine and stay up all night.’
It was a clear reference to our youth. Way back when, staying up for an entire night had seemed like such a grown-up thing to do that we were always trying to do it. But no matter how many times we attempted it we were all such lightweights in the party-animal stakes that we always fell asleep well before dawn. Since then, of course, I had done more than my fair share of all-nighters but not in a while. A very long while.
Gershwin and Zoë looked at me. I looked at Gershwin. Ginny looked at all of us and simultaneously we said, ‘Let’s do it.’
The journey to Ginny’s house brought back floods of memories of the hundreds of times I’d walked Ginny home in the early hours of the morning. Nearly all of the old landmarks I used to count off on the journey from hers back to mine were still there: the post-box on the corner of Ethel Street, the chip shop on Podmore Road and the zebra crossing on King’s Heath high street. The only one that was missing was the huge run-down house on Valentine Road, which had been bulldozed and replaced with two new Barratt-type ‘executive’ homes.
As soon as we’d reached our destination, we all felt incredibly hungry so we raided Ginny’s kitchen cupboards and located an industrial-sized pack of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa. With the aid of a microwave and haphazardly grated Cheddar, we had a feast. Once we were sated, Ginny put on some music (Wham!’s Greatest Hits) and we sat around swapping stories about the things that had happened to us since we’d last been together, carefully resisting phrases like, ‘remember when’ and ‘whatever happened to . . .’ so that Zoë didn’t feel excluded. During my time with Elaine I’d sat through enough where-are-they-now? conversations with her old college and high-school friends to know better than to inflict them on someone else.
As I returned from yet another exploratory rummage through Ginny’s kitchen cupboards armed with a packet of Hobnobs, a selection box of cheese crackers, a small tub of glacé cherries while singing along to ‘Club Tropicana’, Gershwin told me to keep the noise down because Zoë, as she’d predicted, had fallen asleep in an armchair. ‘My wife is such a lightweight,’ he said, laughing.
‘Will she be all right there?’ asked Ginny. ‘She can sleep in my bed, if she wants. If I actually stay awake through the night I’m sure I’ll be far too tired to make it up the stairs.’ She looked over at me and kicked my foot playfully. ‘There’s a spare room upstairs for you as well, if you don’t think you can make it.’
‘I’ll be here to the bitter end,’ I replied.
‘Are you sure about Zoë sleeping upstairs?’ said Gershwin. ‘I could easily call a mini-cab to drop us home.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said cheerily. ‘It’s not a problem.’
Gershwin gently roused Zoë. ‘Ginny said you can sleep in her bed. Do you want to do that?’
She nodded, without even opening her eyes.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to go home?’
She mumbled incoherently.
‘Right, then,’ said Gershwin, picking her up. ‘Let’s get you to bed.’
‘Knackered yet?’ I asked Ginny, as Gershwin left the room.
‘No way.’ She paused. ‘Pass the cherries, chump.’ I handed her the tub and she consumed several at once. ‘These are gorgeous,’ she said.
Feeling even more hungry just from watching her eat, I grabbed a cheese cracker. ‘So,’ I said, crunching, ‘Ian’s nice.’ I’d wanted to say something more dynamic than that, but ‘nice’ was the word that seemed best to sum him up.
She smiled contentedly. ‘Yeah, he is.’
‘How long have you been seeing him?’
‘About two years.’
‘But you don’t live together?’
‘No, no, no,’ she said, emphatically. ‘He has his place. I have mine.’
‘But you’ve got plans to move in together?’
‘I thought you were a software-designer-type blokey not a relationship counsellor,’ she said. ‘No, Ian and I haven’t got any plans to move in together. At least, none that I’m aware of. We like being the way we are, thank you very much. Anyway,’ she sighed, ‘while I’m grateful for your concern about my love-life, what about your own?’
‘What about it?’
‘The ex-girlfriend you mentioned in the Kings Arms? Is she American?’
‘Her name’s Elaine,’ I replied, ‘and, yeah, she’s American.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘She was really cool . . .’ I corrected myself. ‘She still is really cool.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘Familiarity, I think, bred discontent.’
‘You were at the Stage,’ said Ginny. ‘Wandering eyes and all that.’
‘We thought it was best to put down our rabid relationship before we started foaming at the mouth.’
‘Mmmm,’ said Ginny, licking her lips, ‘nice metaphor there, Matthew. You should get a job writing the insides of birthday cards.’ She paused. ‘So, if the relationship was doomed, why do I detect such a heavy sense of loss?’
‘Because—’ I was interrupted by Gershwin entering the room.
‘I haven’t disturbed anything, have I?’ he asked, smirking.
Ginny and I exchanged glances.
‘No,’ I said. ‘We were just talking about how much weight you’ve put on around your neck. You look huge, boy.’
‘Enough of the jibes,’ said Gershwin cheerfully. ‘Let’s get to business.’
‘What business?’ said Ginny, feigning ignorance. Suddenly she burst out laughing. ‘I know it’s crap but I’ve been dying to do it all night. I love talking about old times. I really do.’ She tore open the packet of Hobnobs, grabbed one and settled back in her chair. ‘Has anyone seen any of the old gang recently?’
Gershwin and I shook our heads.
‘I had a postcard from Bev about a million years ago when I was in Brighton,’ said Ginny, ‘but I was a bit rubbish and forgot to call her for ages. And by the time I did she’d moved house.’
‘What was she up to?’ asked Gershwin.
‘Dunno, she didn’t say. Probably saving the whale or something. The postcard was nice, though. It was from New Zealand.’
‘You know Pete’s younger brother Ray?’ began Gershwin. ‘He used to go out with that girl with mousy hair when we were teenagers. Well, Zoë and I bumped into her about a year ago in town and she said that she was still in contact with him. I asked her how Pete was and she said he’d got married or something.’
‘Pete?’ said Ginny. ‘Him? Get married? Never.’
‘Apparently he’s got a kid too.’
‘Pete, married with kid?’ said Ginny disbelievingly. ‘Never. Never. Never.’
‘Who have you seen, Matt?’
I grabbed a biscuit and tried to remember the last time I’d seen any of our old friends. ‘I think the last person I saw was Elliot, but that was about three years ago when I was in London. He’d got my mobile number from my mum and called me out of the blue because he was in town on some conference and wanted to meet up. I wouldn’t have minded but it was about ten to midnight and I was in bed. Half an hour later he picked me up in his flash company car and we had this absolutely mad night out – curry houses, late-night members-only drinking clubs, hotel bars, the lot. I ended up crashing at his hotel room. We exchanged numbers and everything the next day, but then neither of us called.’
‘Sounds like typical Elliot to me,’ said Ginny.
‘What about Katrina?’ said Gershwin. ‘Has no one heard from her?’
‘Last time I spoke to her was at your wedding,’ said Ginny. �
�She was in London, wasn’t she?’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘She’d moved there because she was going to make it as editor of Vogue. She always was more determined than the rest of us. I wonder if she did it?’
Ginny sighed heavily. ‘Do you know what?’
‘What?’ I said, needlessly. I knew exactly what she was going to say.
‘I miss all that lot,’ she said. ‘And I miss those days.’
‘Me too,’ said Gershwin.
twenty-nine
When I woke up the next morning and found myself face down on the sofa, I thought for a minute that I was back in New York on the Sofa from Hell. Gershwin was asleep on the smaller sofa in the corner of the room and Ginny was curled up in the armchair she’d been sitting in. We must have fallen asleep somewhere after our where-are-they-now conversation because I couldn’t remember much else after that . . . apart from the renewing of our pact to stay awake all night by promising to wake each other up if any of us started to nod off.
That whole evening, since the moment I had seen Ginny again, had reminded me what I’d been missing out on by not keeping in touch with my old friends. Talking to them made me feel like I’d known Gershwin and Ginny for ever. They knew the me who had been suspended from school for smashing a stink bomb in an English lesson; they knew the me who had been so drunk at Nadine Baggott’s sixteenth birthday party that I’d spent the night asleep in the garden and had to be taken to hospital the next day to be treated for hypothermia. Only they and the rest of the group would remember those times as I did.
Without waking anyone I went to the toilet, grabbed a slice of bread from the bread-bin in Ginny’s kitchen to stave off hunger pangs and slipped out of the front door. I checked my watch: it was just coming up to a quarter to six. There was something glorious about being up at this time of the day, still wearing the previous night’s clothes, smelling slightly sour, probably looking a bit rough around the edges. It reminded me of parties of the past, the days when I really could go out clubbing until four in the morning. It reminded me of how things used to be.