by Mike Gayle
That’s pretty much it.
Mail me back soon?
love as always,
Matt xxx
eighty-three
Although I’d told Elaine that I thought Ginny and I would have The Talk, as the day wore on and Ginny didn’t call, I became less convinced we would. I realised I was right to be sceptical. Not only did we not talk about it that evening but we didn’t mention it the evening after that. Or the evening after that. Or the evening after that. It was like being in the sixth form again, only this time without having to pretend we didn’t fancy each other. We behaved as if we were together – by which I mean that we were all over each other every night when she came home from work. She took to ignoring Ian’s calls, which was deeply satisfying, and we spent every single second we could together, but we didn’t talk – or, at least, we didn’t have The Talk. We couldn’t. Instead every day while she went out to work I went into analysis overdrive. Along the lines of:
Question: Am I happy?
Answer: A resounding yes, followed by a brief furrow of the eyebrows and the question: but what is happy? If happy is feeling carefree then I suspect I’m far from happy. But if happy is laughing so hard at your new girlfriend/not girlfriend’s very poor jokes that your sides hurt, if happy is looking into your girlfriend/not girlfriend’s eyes and seeing the very something that you’d thought you’d lost a long time ago, if happy is these things then I am indeed happy. But if it isn’t, then: no.
This would inevitably lead me to:
Question: Can I allow myself to enjoy this happiness given that it’s only a transitory set of emotions providing a brief respite from the knowledge that:
(a) I’m supposed to be moving to Australia in less than three weeks?
(b) My new girlfriend/not girlfriend is still currently in a relationship with a married man?
(c) I suspect that I’m still rebounding from Elaine?
(d) I’m turning thirty?
Answer: no.
Despite all these questions to which I had no real answers, that week Ginny and I had a fantastic time. If our lives had been a film then the week that began with the kiss on Sunday evening would be represented by a cheesy montage: Ginny and I laughing as we held hands and walked barefoot across a sandy beach; Ginny and I splashing in a crystal blue ocean – Ginny falling into my arms for a kiss; Ginny and I staring deeply into each other’s eyes as the sun set behind our heads. That sort of thing. Unfortunately this wasn’t Hollywood, USA, this was Birmingham, UK, so our montage wasn’t quite so glamorous.
Montage Moment 1
It’s Monday morning and I wake up with no Ginny beside me. There’s a note next to the bed saying that she’s got up early to buy us breakfast before she goes to work. I roll over on to my front, dangle an arm over the edge of the bed and brush against something. I pick up the object – a shoe-box. I know what it is immediately because I’ve seen her get some old photos of Gershwin out of it. I take the opportunity to look through them. Straight away I come across photos of Ginny and me that I haven’t seen since the day she collected them from Boots. In these photos we are seventeen. I think about how young seventeen really is. She comes back. I hide the box and we kiss.
Montage Moment 2
It’s early evening on Tuesday. Ginny and I are sitting on the doorstep looking out on to the back garden even though it’s raining and the garden is a jungle of weeds. She is feeding me a whole packet of Revels one by one, just as I fed her a small bunch of seedless grapes only moments before. We are being that sickeningly together. I decide that when we get to the end of the packet we are going to have a talk – The Talk. The one about us. And the future. And what we actually think we are achieving by doing this. Stuff we both know we need to know. I look into the packet and can see that there are only three left.
‘Do you know how cute you are?’ she says.
The honeycomb centre one.
‘You are cute, you know. Unbearably so,’ she continues.
The milk chocolate one shaped like a flying saucer.
‘I think I might actually be . . .’ she begins, then hesitates.
The orange one.
‘You think you might actually be what?’ I ask, still chewing.
She shrugs, kisses me and says, ‘I think nothing.’
Montage Moment 3
We’re in the city centre in the late afternoon on Wednesday. Ginny’s come here straight after work and we are wandering around aimlessly because that’s what we did virtually every day during long, hot, post-exam summers. We wander into a shop that sells pictures and picture frames and look through some black and white prints. I point out one of Louis Armstrong that I like. He’s standing next to Ella Fitzgerald and looking so happy that he must have been on the verge of exploding.
‘I’ll buy it for you,’ says Ginny.
‘No, there’s no need.’
‘I think there is,’ she says, ignoring me.
Five minutes later I’m walking around with the print and frame, and I don’t know what it is I’m feeling but I am feeling something quite incredible.
Montage Moment 4
It’s Thursday evening and Ginny and I are over at Gershwin and Zoë’s for dinner. I expect us to modify our behaviour – to keep it our secret for a little while longer but we don’t. Ginny sits next to me the whole time squeezed right up against me, staring at me as if she really is interested in every word that comes out of my mouth, no matter how inane. I suspect I am doing the same. Gershwin and Zoë are really cool about it. They don’t bat an eyelid, even though I can see that Zoë is dying to interrogate us. A couple of times during the evening I catch Zoë looking at me with a question in her eyes, but it’s not really a question she’s asking so much as a silent comment she wants to be confirmed. ‘You’re in love, aren’t you?’
Montage Moment 5
It’s Friday night around eleven o’clock and we’ve just got back to the house after a night out at the Kings Arms. We’re drunk but not ridiculously so and our breath smells of chips and curry sauce. All the way home I have been feeling subdued. I don’t know how to say what I want to say. I turn on the TV and watch it silently wrapped in my own thoughts while Ginny makes popcorn for no other reason than that today I bought her a popcorn-maker because she said she’d always wanted one.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks, entering the room with a small dustbin-sized container filled with enough popcorn to supply the local multiplex.
‘Thinking,’ I return.
‘Is that what you’re doing?’ she says, with gentle sarcasm. ‘I thought you were just watching . . .’ she looks at the TV ‘ . . . reruns of Magnum PI.’
I smile. ‘I know that’s what it looks like I’m doing but I’m actually doing stuff. It’s all in my head. I’m doing a very good job in my head. Just not anywhere else.’
She walks across the room, places the vat of popcorn in front of the TV, sits down and puts her arms around me.
‘Everything’s going to be all right, you know,’ she says.
‘Is it?’
‘Of course.’
‘How?’
‘Because I said so.’
eighty-four
‘Er . . . look . . . Ginny,’ I began, unsteadily, to make the point that had been five long days coming, ‘I . . . er . . . know this is difficult but I think we need to talk.’
The two of us were sitting in All Bar One in Brindley Place, nursing a bit of a hangover, eating a fried breakfast, consuming orange juice by the litre (as if vitamin C were sufficient antidote to the aforementioned hangover) and I was determined that we were going to talk about the thing between us that we just weren’t talking about. After six days of rolling it round in my head I hadn’t come up with a single solution of my own.
‘I know, I know,’ said Ginny, after a long moment of reflection. ‘You’re right. I’ve been avoiding it like the plague. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about things, Matt, I promise you. It’s just that . . .’
‘Exactly. But even so, you’re right, we’ve got to talk.’
Silence.
‘You first,’ she said. ‘You’re so much better at this talking thing than I am.’
I wished for a moment that Elaine could have heard that. ‘Okay. It’s like this . . .’ My voice faded.
Silence.
‘Maybe I should have a go,’ suggested Ginny.
‘Be my guest,’ I replied generously.
‘Well, the thing is . . .’ Long pause. Followed by a sigh. Followed by a long pause. ‘This is impossible, isn’t it?’
I took a sip of orange juice to combat a sudden case of hangover-head explosion. ‘The conversation or the situation?’
‘Both.’
‘Look,’ I said, squinting – the hangover-head explosion was still attempting to shake my foundations, ‘I’ll understand if this is just a fling, you know. I’m a big boy now. I’m nearly thirty. I won’t fall apart if it’s like that . . .’
‘It’s not like that,’ said Ginny. ‘It’s nothing like that. In a lot of ways I wish it was like that because it would be so much easier. I have no idea what’s going on here, Matt, I really don’t. If you were to ask me how I felt about Ian, I’d probably tell you that I love him – which is true – but I also know that it’s never going to work out with him and what I’ve got with him now just isn’t worth having. I’m tired of all the lies and the deception. I want my life back the way it used to be. So, the way I see it, even if nothing more happens between you and me, even if we finish now and decide to be just friends, I’ll have no regrets at all because this . . .’ she gestured to the table, which I assumed represented the concept of ‘us’ . . . will help me get over him. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that it’s nice to be reminded that it’s not all set in stone – it’s nice to know that nice things do happen every now and again out of the blue.’
‘So, are you saying that you want this to be it?’
‘No.’ She leant forward and kissed me. ‘Of course not. I’m saying that, yes, I’d like this to be more than a fling but if it can’t be then I accept that.’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘What?’
‘Accept that this is just a fling.’
Ginny looked over at me and smiled. ‘Me neither.’
‘But you just said . . .’
‘Keep up with the action, Matt,’ she said. ‘I was lying. All that “I’ll have no regrets at all because this will help me get over him” stuff was a load of rubbish, total fabrication, girls’ lies, in case you didn’t feel the same way. But I am glad you feel the same way because if you didn’t the last thing you need before your thirtieth birthday is to be quaking in the knowledge that an ex-girlfriend/notgirlfriend from your schooldays has totally fallen for you.’
‘Totally?’
‘Incontrovertibly.’
‘So you’d like to make a go of it?’
‘Me and you?’ There was a brief, barely perceptible pause. ‘Yeah, of course.’
‘You don’t sound that enthusiastic,’ I replied, reacting to the barely perceptible pause.
‘How can I be, when everything seems to be stacked against us? You’re leaving to go to Australia, there’s Ian . . .’
‘Well, the first thing’s easily remedied. I won’t go to Australia.’
Ginny looked shocked. I couldn’t work out whether this was a good shocked or the bad kind. When she began her next sentence with the words ‘Listen, Matt . . .’ I decided it was the bad kind. I suspected I’d come on a little too strong.
‘You don’t want me to stay,’ I said defensively.
She reached across the table and took my hand. ‘Of course I’d love you to stay . . .’
‘Then that’s all there is to it,’ I said, taking the proverbial bull by the horns. ‘We’ve made more progress in the last six days than we have in the last ten years. This feels right, Ginny.’
‘I know and I agree, but six days is still six days, Matt. And that’s way too much pressure to put on any relationship.’
‘It would be under normal circumstances, Ginny, but these aren’t normal circumstances, are they?’ I was unsure whether to proceed with my next sentence.’ Do you remember the pact we made at Gershwin’s wedding?’ Ginny opened her mouth, and I could tell by the expression on her face that she was about to pretend not to recall the conversation.
‘I’d had a lot to drink,’ she said laughing. ‘But, yeah, I do remember. We said that if we were both single by the time we turned thirty we’d get together.’ She looked embarrassed. ‘But we said all that when we were twenty-four, Matt. That feels like almost a lifetime ago.’
‘I’m not saying that we should make a go of it because of some stupid pact, I’m saying we should make a go of it because, even then, we knew exactly what we know now and have probably known since the day we first saw each other: we are meant to be together. Think about it. This has been going on since we were seventeen. We’ve tried everything to avoid being together – going out with other people, moving cities, moving countries, even – and look where we are. Right back here where it all began.’ I kissed her. ‘We don’t have to rush anything. We can take our time and see how it goes. But if you think that I can come back home feeling like I have no direction, have all this happen and still walk away, you don’t know me at all.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Of course I mean it. I’ve never meant anything more. If you want I can phone work today and tell them I’m not going to Australia.’
‘No, wait. At least until I’ve spoken to Ian. Once it’s all over with him I’ll be able to think straight. I’ll do it tomorrow,’ she said quietly. ‘Definitely tomorrow. But for now let’s just have a nice day.’
‘And do what?’ I asked.
She knocked back the last of her orange juice and stood up. ‘Let’s go shopping.’
eighty-five
It was two hours later and we were standing in the same men’s clothes shop I’d visited during my first week in Birmingham. The goatee boy DJ was still doing his stuff in the corner, the stick-insect shop assistant with the sneer was still sneering, and I was still attempting to hold true to my dark blue/black clothing rule. Ginny, however, was having none of it.
‘So you’re telling me,’ she began, as she rifled through a rack of T-shirts on my behalf, ‘that all the clothes you have bought since you turned twenty-six have been dark blue or black?’
‘Every single thing,’ I said proudly.
‘Socks?’
‘Yes.’
‘Boxer shorts?’
‘Always.’
‘Shirts?’
‘I do have a few white shirts but I only ever wear them when I’ve got to meet a big client otherwise it’s—’
‘—dark blue or black.’
I could see from Ginny’s face that she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. We moved on from the T-shirt rail to a rail of ‘casual’ trousers.
‘What about these?’ she said, showing me a pair of green combat-style trousers.
‘No, they’re green.’
She moved on to a pair of burgundy velvet trousers. ‘And these.’
‘Burgundy?’ I responded. ‘Are you joking?’
Ginny still couldn’t quite believe this. She moved across to a row of suits and picked out a a three-button light grey one. ‘Come on, Matt, even this can’t offend your sensibilities. I could really fancy you in this suit.’
‘Light grey? I’d spend my life tripping backwards and forwards from the dry-cleaners. Not in a million years, my dear.’
‘You know this is weird, don’t you?’
‘I’ve told you,’ I said. ‘I can’t help myself. I know exactly what I like. If it’s Indian food, I like Chicken Tikka Masala. If it’s music, I like female singer-songwriters, and if it’s clothing then it’s dark blue/black.’ I turned and looked right into her eyes. ‘A
nd if it’s women then it’s you.’
She laughed and kissed me even though the shop was now quite busy.
‘Steady on,’ I said.
‘Never mind steady on. There’s plenty more where that came from. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of gratuitous public displays of emotions so excuse me while I make the most of it.’ She kissed me again then looked me in the eyes intensely. ‘Why does this feel so right?’
‘Because you’ve been in denial and I’ve shown you the way,’ I said, suddenly filled with self-assurance. It felt good to be here, in public, with this beautiful woman. It felt good that every man in that shop, no matter how pretentiously dressed, would know that Ginny was my girlfriend. ‘You’ve been scared of knowing what you want because you think life should be some sort of adventure where you just run around making the same mistakes again and again, never learning from them. That to you is exciting. Whereas for me exciting is knowing exactly what something’s going to be like and knowing that once I’ve got it, as long as it’s well maintained, it will always hold the same delight for me that it had the first time I encountered it. In fact, sometimes it can get better. I don’t like the new. The new makes me nervous. I like the old. The tried and tested.’