by Mike Gayle
‘I suppose I’d better go and see who it is,’ I say. ‘But whoever it is I’m not letting them in, okay?’
I peer through the spyhole and see Jim standing on the step. As I open the front door I receive my second shock: I’m hit by the aroma of Indian takeaway emanating from a brown paper bag in his hands.
‘Hi,’ I say, grinning hugely, while trying to distract him from my dishevelled attire.
‘Hi,’ says Jim. ‘I can tell from the look on your face you’re wondering what I want. The thing is, I was just passing with an early Monday-night date.’
‘A Monday-night date?’
‘You know how everything is prepackaged these days,’ he continues. ‘Well, they now do dates in a box.’ Jim looks at the bag in his hands. ‘Well, actually this is more of a bag than a box. A bag containing a takeaway for two and a video.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘Look,’ he says, ‘I should’ve explained to you on the phone. I can’t do Monday-night dates.’ He then begins to expound to me his long and convoluted theory on Monday-night dates. ‘That’s why,’ he says in conclusion, ‘I’m standing here on your doorstep bringing our date forward by twenty-four hours. This is a tricky time for new relationships and we don’t want to jinx it, do we?’
‘No,’ I say, laughing. ‘We don’t.’
So after apologising profusely to my housemates Jim and I have our first date on the green-velour sofa in the living room. We eat Chicken Rogan Josh and pilau rice from plates on our laps, share a naan bread and play with Disco well after everyone else has gone to bed.
11.55 p.m.
‘What do you want to do now?’ I ask Jim. The house is deadly silent and we are huddled on the sofa.
‘I don’t mind,’ says Jim.
‘We could talk.’
‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘I’m really glad you came round tonight. I know I’ve been a bit useless when it’s come to you and me.’
‘You could say that. It’s taken us . . .’ he pauses, working it out ‘. . . a long time to get together.’
I laugh. ‘Well, all I really wanted to say is that despite all my attempts to put you off –’
‘– and there were many –’
‘– I’m glad I didn’t succeed.’
‘But why did you try to put me off? Is this always the way you go about things? Did Damon have to work so hard to get you or was this a special test that you dreamed up for me?’
‘Apart from Freshers’ Night, which was more because I thought you were a nutter, I suppose it was a case of the more you like someone and the longer you like them the more there is at stake. And, let’s face it, it’s taken us quite a bit of time to get to where we are now.’
‘It was a long time,’ he says, ‘but it was worth it.’
Monday, 1 March 1993
7.33 a.m.
It’s morning and I wake up next to Jim. I make him toast and then he leaves to go across the road to get changed and shower. He comes back ten minutes later and we get the bus into town together.
1.22 p.m.
Revolution Records is on completely the opposite side of the city centre to Alison’s bookshop. Even so, during my lunch-break I walk all the way to Kenway’s just to say hello to her for fifteen minutes. In the end I’m in such a rush to get back to the shop that I miss my lunch. I have to survive the rest of the day on three cups of coffee and a packet of Polos.
6.20 p.m.
Jim meets me after work and we go for a drink in the Cathedral Tavern. Jim’s so hungry that when he orders drinks for us he returns to the table with two pints of lager and five packets of dry-roasted peanuts. I take him home to mine and make him five slices of toast with two tins of beans.
Tuesday, 2 March 1993
7.13 a.m.
I suggest to Alison that we should both call in sick to work. Alison decides she’s going to have a cold with overtones of a fever that will suggest she might be coming down with flu. I go for food poisoning and, for the sake of my boss, I go into explicit detail about how it’s coming out of both ends like a fountain. After the calls we go back to bed and sleep so late that by the time we wake up we’ve missed the midday episode of Neighbours.
2.02 p.m.
We have a leisurely breakfast/lunch of cornflakes, toast and jam, then take up residence on the sofa, watching the cream of afternoon television while working our way through two packets of crisps and a large bag of toffee popcorn. When Alison’s housemates arrive home from work they discover us asleep in front of Countdown surrounded by crisps packets and popcorn bits.
Wednesday, 3 March 1993
11.09 p.m.
‘I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,’ I tell Alison, at the end of another evening together, ‘but I think we should spend the night apart. I’m shattered, aren’t you? Every night since we’ve been together we’ve stayed up really late. I fell asleep at the till this afternoon. It was only for a split second but the only thing that woke me up was Patrick, my boss, slipping on the new Napalm Death album and cranking the volume right up. I yelled so loudly everyone in the shop looked at me as if I was some sort of lunatic. We need sleep. So, let’s just take the night off, okay?’
Alison looks disappointed. ‘Do we have to?’
‘Yes . . . no . . . yes . . . At least, I think so.’
At the door she gives me a long kiss goodnight. ‘Shall I walk you home?’ she asks.
‘Will you stop at nothing to seduce me?’ I ask her. ‘I live across the road, I think I’ll be all right, somehow.’
11.37 p.m.
I’ve been lying in bed for all of five minutes when I realise I already miss Jim too much to go to sleep. It might have been easier if he’d lived miles away but I keep thinking about him, wondering what he’s doing, what expression is on his face, whether he’s asleep or not. By the time it gets to a quarter to twelve I’ve put my shoes back on, loaded my bag with spare underwear, deodorant and a clean top for work. When I tell Jane I’m going over to Jim’s because I miss him she laughs like a drain and shakes her head in pity.
Thursday, 4 March 1993
12.02 a.m.
As I walk along the path to the front gate and cross the road, I’m in a world of my own until a voice breaks my concentration. ‘Great minds think alike,’ says Jim.
I look up and he’s standing right in front of me. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Yours,’ he explains. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I kind of missed you. Where were you off to, like I don’t already know?’
‘It’s pathetic, really. Look at us. We’re like a couple of lovestruck teenagers. We’re twenty-two. We shouldn’t be acting like this, should we?’
Jim looks at me and shrugs. Then, hand in hand, we go back to mine.
6.33 p.m.
After work we get the bus back to Kings Heath, but on a whim I decide to make Alison a meal from scratch, using the kind of raw materials you only find in a supermarket. We get off in Moseley and go to Kwik Save.
‘I love this,’ says Alison, as we walk up the first aisle in the store, which contains cereal, biscuits, fruit juice and other drinks. ‘I’m so excited.’
‘Well, if Kwik Save gets you going.’ I say, ‘tomorrow I’ll take you to Poundland.’
‘I’m not excited by Kwik Save – although who couldn’t be excited by a store where you have to buy your own carrier bags? – I’m excited because I’m shopping with you. I normally do my shopping with the girls. Which is fine. But it has just occurred to me that I’ve never been supermarket shopping with someone I’m going out with.’
‘You never went to the supermarket with Damon?’
‘It just never happened. There’s something really nice about shopping together, don’t you think? It’s because it’s so domestic, isn’t it? I love watching couples doing their shopping together, don’t you?’ She points to a couple in their late twenties – a man in a suit and a girl in jeans and trainers. ‘People like them. They
’ve spent the day apart and now they’re here getting stuff they need: a couple of bananas, loo roll, washing powder, cereal.’
‘You mean the kind of stuff we all buy every week?’
‘Yes, but it’s different when you buy things as part of a couple. Supermarket shopping is like the biggest symbol of togetherness. It’s nice. It’s comfortable . . . It’s cosy.’
‘Here’s to togetherness,’ I say cheerfully, as I drop a packet of Kellogg’s Fruit ’n’ Fibre into our trolley.
Sunday, 7 March 1993
9.03 a.m.
‘It’s like this,’ I explain to Jane in the kitchen, as I make the first cup of tea of the day. ‘I want to kiss Jim constantly. I want to make him breakfast in bed. I want to hold hands with him and take long walks in the park on sunny Sunday afternoons. I want to buy him clothes. I want to kill dragons for him and rescue him from the clutches of anyone who wants to do him harm. I want to tell anyone who will listen: “See this wonderful, intelligent, handsome bloke by my side? This is my boyfriend, Jim.”’
PART THREE
Then: 1994–96
1994
Tuesday, 4 January 1994
7.30 p.m.
It’s our first night back in Birmingham after the new year. I’m over at Alison’s and, with Disco, we’re watching Coronation Street, which is one of the many programmes I’d never seen until I got together with her (including other non-Australian soap operas, any programme featuring injured pets and breakfast television).
‘How long have we been together?’ I ask her casually.
‘Ten months.’
‘That’s a long time.’
‘I suppose it is.’
There’s a long pause.
‘You know what?’ I tell her. ‘As girlfriends go you’re all right, you know.’
‘All right?’
‘Yeah, all right.’
‘Good,’ she replies. ‘I think you’re all right too.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ I reply, and then we carry on watching TV.
Wednesday, 5 January 1994
9.05 p.m.
‘I think Jim’s trying to tell me he loves me,’ I say to Jane, the following night, when we’re in the Jug.
‘How do you know?’ she asks, simultaneously offering me a cigarette.
I look at the packet. ‘I’m trying to give up,’ I reply. ‘New Year resolution and all that.’
‘Sorry,’ says Jane. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Jim’s always telling me . . .’ I lower my speech and adopt the Voice of Doom ‘. . . THESE THINGS WILL KILL YOU.’
We both laugh, then I reach out and take a cigarette.
‘I thought—’
‘It’s only the one,’ I say, interrupting her, then giggle. ‘I’ll give up tomorrow.’ I light up and continue my story. ‘He did that whole bumbling thing blokes do and then told me that he thought I was “all right”.’
Jane laughs. ‘“All right” is good, but when will blokes learn that it’s not good enough? What did you say back?’
‘I told him I thought he was okay too.’
‘Disappointed he didn’t go all the way?’
‘A little bit. I’ve known for months now that I’m in love with him. But I’m determined I’m not going to say anything until he’s ready to say it to me.’
‘Trust me, he’s a boy,’ says Jane, ‘so you might be in for a long wait. A very long wait.’
Sunday, 1 May 1994
11.39 p.m.
I’m lying in bed when I’m woken by the sound of someone throwing lumps of soil at my bedroom window. I open my curtain, peer down into the moonlit street and see Jim on all fours in the front garden. He’d told me he was going out for a drink with the boys. I wasn’t expecting to see him until tomorrow night when we’re supposed to be going to the cinema.
I open the window. ‘Jim,’ I say exasperatedly. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for stuff to throw at your window,’ he slurs drunkenly.
‘You’re drunk,’ I whisper hoarsely, in case he hasn’t realised. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want to tell you something,’ he says. ‘I want to tell you that . . . that . . . that I like you. I just thought you ought to know.’
‘Thanks.’ I sigh. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
I pretend to go back to bed but I stay and watch from the corner of the window as he stumbles out of the garden, across the road and spends five minutes trying to find the keys to his front door. As I get into bed I ask myself whether I would’ve accepted a drunken declaration of love. As I fall asleep I decide that something would’ve been better than nothing.
Saturday, 4 June 1994
2.28 p.m.
It’s a sunny summer afternoon. Jim and I are walking around the lake in Cannon Hill park. The warm weather has brought everybody out and there are mums and dads with prams, little kids racing around on bikes, older kids playing football. It seems like the whole of Birmingham has come out to play.
‘I’m going to ask you a question,’ says Jim, ‘but I don’t want you to infer anything by it, okay?’
‘Okay,’ I reply. ‘Fire away.’
‘Do you think it’s possible to love one person for the rest of your life?’
‘Yes,’ I say immediately. ‘Next question?’
‘That was it, really. I was hoping I’d get more out of you than a simple yes. I was looking for more of a discussion.’
‘That’s men all over. They like to argue about things just for the sake of it. The fact is, Jim, I do think it’s possible to love one person for the whole of your life. But at the same time I realise it’s pretty hard.’
‘That’s what I think too.’
There’s a long silence.
‘So, is that it, then?’ I ask. ‘Is question time over?’
‘Not quite. I’ve got one more. Have you ever told anyone that you loved them?’
‘Now, that’s what I call a proper conversation. The first person I told was Michael Pemberton when I was fifteen and we’d been together three days.’
‘Michael Pemberton? I like the sound of him.’ Jim smiles.
‘He was lovely. We were on a school trip to Cambridge and Michael ate his sandwiches with me rather than with his mates. I think that pushed me over the edge a little bit because in those days who you ate your sandwiches with on a school trip really meant something. I remember we sneaked off for a bit of a kissing session and in the middle of it I told him I loved him. He just looked at me blankly, then carried on kissing me.’
‘You know what that was about, don’t you?’ says Jim.
‘Of course I wanted some sort of reaction but the fact that I got none didn’t upset me because I think I liked the idea of saying it so much it didn’t matter that I didn’t hear it back. I was over the moon that day. I really was. The next day he dumped me.’
‘That’s got to have hurt.’
‘It did. He didn’t even say why. He just said, “I don’t want to see you any more.”’
‘Which is code for “You’re coming on a bit strong there.”’
‘Exactly.’
‘Poor fifteen-year-old you.’
‘Thanks. I was upset for a while but the fact that I’d told a real live human being that I loved them more than made up for my newly single status. It was kind of losing my I-love-you virginity, not the best experience of my life but I was hoping it would get better as I got older. Plus Michael’s reaction made the whole situation more tragic and that’s what I wanted in my life at the time – a bit of tragedy and drama.’
‘Who was next?’
‘After that I think it was Andrew Jarrett, who I went out with when I was seventeen.’
‘I don’t like the sound of Andrew Jarrett at all.’
‘Why?’
‘He sounds weaselly. Was he?’
‘Of course he wasn’t weaselly. He was gorgeous. So gorgeous I think I was in love with him before I started going out with him. It wasn’t just an ob
session, I was genuinely in love with him. It’s funny, I can laugh about it now but I can remember sobbing my heart out night after night because I wasn’t his girlfriend. I hadn’t even talked to him at the time. But I tell you – and I’m not joking – I would’ve done anything for him. Absolutely anything. I got off with him at a party and I told him I loved him after all of three hours’ snogging him. I didn’t see much of him after that because he avoided me like the plague. It took me a while but I eventually worked out that it wasn’t the best idea to start declaring your love before the boy you’re with declares his.’
‘So when did you finally get a boy to do that?’
‘The summer before university. I met Steven Sanderson on holiday in Lanzarote. He was fantastically good-looking and very trendy and we had a great time. I was so pleased with myself that I had a friend take a whole roll of film of me and Steve so that I could send pictures to all my friends from school and sixth-form college – shallow, I know, but he was gorgeous. But even gorgeousness wears off after a while – I suppose you become immune to the effect. I wasn’t in love with him but I’m ashamed to say that I was desperate for him to be in love with me, if only to show that I was having some sort of effect on him. He said it about a month and a half into our relationship. He took me out to an Italian restaurant in town and we had what he thought was a romantic meal. The food was terrible, the waiters were hopeless, and Steven’s attempts at looking sophisticated were cack-handed at best. Over a glass of breadsticks he took my hand and told me he loved me. Refusing to learn the lessons of the past I felt bad that I’d made him say it so I said it back to him, and that seemed to make him happy. We lost interest in each other pretty much instantaneously after that and we didn’t so much split up as fade away.’