My Single Friend

by Jane Costello

  My eyes widen. ‘Not us?’

  ‘What do you mean, not us?’ she whoops. ‘Of course us! I told you we had it in the bag, didn’t I? They tried to phone you ten minutes ago to let you know, but you were in with Roger so the call came to me.’

  Dominique and I spend five minutes jumping up and down and hugging each other. When we finally stop, Drew has his coat on.

  ‘Congratulations, ladies,’ he smiles insincerely.

  ‘Thank you, Drew,’ I reply. ‘It’s a great win for the company.’

  ‘Well deserved, I’m sure. Anyway, I’m off to a meeting. Oh, and Lucy – you’d better phone Joe at the Gazette. I meant to tell you he rang this morning.’

  ‘Right. What’s it about?’

  ‘The same thing he phoned for on Friday – the quote they need from Abrams Smith. He was pissed off you hadn’t returned his calls and said if you don’t get back to him in five minutes they’re running a negative piece – with a “no comment”.’

  ‘What? But he never left any messages! There’s no way I’d ignore something like that over the weekend.’

  ‘Come on, he did leave a message.’

  I frown. ‘Not that I got.’

  ‘Oh.’ He picks up a Post-it note from his desk. ‘Sorry, Lucy. My mistake.’ He passes me the note and grabs his bag, before heading to the door.

  Dom looks at my expression and frowns. ‘He can’t have done that on purpose . . . can he?’

  ‘God knows,’ I huff. Though the truth is, I suspect Drew is about as trustworthy as General Pinochet.

  Chapter 16

  Dominique was right about The Lovely Gary. He wasn’t that lovely. At least, he wasn’t lovely enough to stick with Erin. I could tell she’d been dumped the second she turned up at the flat with the red eyes and swollen features distinctive of a newly-offloaded girlfriend.

  Fortunately, Henry’s at rugby practice, so there’s only me to console her, which I can’t help thinking is a good thing. Henry might only be Henry, but he’s still a man – and no one wants a man around at a time like this.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she sniffs, taking a shaky gulp of wine as we sit at the kitchen table, conducting a post mortem. ‘I honestly thought he was . . .’ Her voice trails off.

  ‘The one?’ I offer limply. Poor Erin has told me four times this evening that she honestly thought he was the one.

  Her face crumples as she blows into her tissue with the force of an industrial dryer.

  ‘Do you know what he said to me, Lucy? He said I wasn’t exciting enough. What does that mean, not exciting enough? Am I supposed to start paragliding every weekend?’

  This is the fifth time Erin’s told me the ‘not exciting enough’ line, though I’m obviously not going to point that out either. Instead, I shake my head tepidly and tut, carefully composing my next sentence.

  ‘Sometimes men don’t know when they’ve got a good thing,’ I tell her, putting my hand on her arm. ‘You see it all the time – great relationships thrown away for no better reason than itchy feet.’

  I’m careful to refer to ‘men’, rather than specifically Gary. I’ve learned over the years that, when comforting newly-single friends, you shouldn’t go overboard in slagging off the bloke in question, conniving scoundrel or not. This is largely because of the possibility that they might get back together, though admittedly in this case that sounds unlikely.

  But there’s also something else: Erin remains, very clearly, head over heels in love with The Lovely Gary. Perverse as it is, any criticism of him would be taken as criticism of her. So I’m treading a cautious line.

  ‘Lucy, promise not to think I’m an idiot, but can I ask you something?’ She takes out a tissue from her fifth ‘handy pack’ and wipes her salty cheeks. ‘Do you think I could do anything to make him take me back?’

  ‘Short of begging?’ I smile softly, obviously not being serious.

  ‘I’ve already done that,’ she whimpers. ‘I actually got down on my hands and knees. Can you believe that? I’m a twenty-seven-year-old woman. I own my own house. I have an influential job and responsibility for an annual budget of tens of thousands of pounds. Yet I’ve been reduced to going down on my hands and knees and begging a man to take me back. What’s that about?’

  ‘Oh Erin.’ I put my arm around her and feel her shoulders heave up and down.

  ‘I’m pathetic, aren’t I?’ she sobs.

  ‘Of course you’re not pathetic. You’ve been dumped, that’s all. You’re reacting exactly as people do when they’ve been dumped. It’s a law of nature.’

  ‘If that’s true, I hate the laws of nature.’

  ‘Of course you do. The laws of nature put men on earth who wouldn’t appreciate a good woman if she came with a free BMW and a money-back guarantee.’

  She smiles half-heartedly.

  ‘The thing is, Erin, he might change his mind, bu—’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ she leaps in.

  ‘He might change his mind,’ I continue, ‘but he might not. Hard as it is, the sooner you assume that he won’t and – to use a horrible phrase – move on, the better.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can,’ she sniffs.

  ‘I know it doesn’t feel like it, but believe me, you can.’

  Her lip starts wobbling.

  ‘Listen,’ I continue gently, ‘nobody could blame you for wanting to curl up and feel sorry for yourself. In fact, indulging yourself is exactly what you should do.’

  Erin is about to say something, when the door slams.

  ‘Hi, honey, I’m home!’ yells Henry. It’d be funny at any other time. I flash Erin a look as he appears at the kitchen door.

  ‘Erin – is something the matter?’ he asks.

  She sniffs and looks embarrassed. ‘I’d better be going.’ She stands up.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t go because of me,’ Henry leaps in. ‘Really, I’ll get out of your way if you want. I’m good at that, aren’t I, Lucy?’

  ‘He is,’ I agree.

  ‘But I’m also not a bad shoulder to cry on,’ he offers.

  ‘That’s also true,’ I admit. ‘When Tom dumped me, I spent three weeks chained to this table, with a glass of wine on one side and Henry on the other.’

  ‘You see?’ he says. ‘I’m a world-class listener. I have to be, with Lucy’s love-life.’

  I purse my lips.

  Erin tries to smile again. ‘I’m not sure you’d understand.’

  ‘Try me.’ Henry sits down and pulls out the chair next to him. Erin sinks into it and I put her wine back in her hand.

  ‘Gary split up with me.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  I frown. He might look appropriately sympathetic but he’ll have to do better than that.

  ‘It’s not only that.’ Erin takes out her sixth handy pack of tissues and opens it with trembling hands. ‘Do you know what he said?’

  ‘What?’ asks Henry.

  ‘He said I wasn’t exciting enough. Can you believe that?’

  Henry looks appalled. ‘Does he want you to start snow-boarding every weekend?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I said!’ Erin slams her hand down on the table and almost makes her wine glass topple over. I grab it immediately, mopping up the slops with a tea-towel. ‘Well, I said paragliding, but I meant the same.’

  ‘He sounds like a prat if you ask me,’ says Henry in disgust, abandoning the cautious tone I’ve carefully deployed for last two hours. If he notices my warning look, he chooses to ignore it.

  ‘What sort of insensitive idiot would say a thing like that when they’re splitting up with someone?’ he rants. ‘Who does he think he is – God’s gift to womankind? Erin, I know you were in love with him, but he doesn’t deserve you.’

  I scowl at Henry to indicate that if he doesn’t shut up I’ll gag him with my tea-towel.

  ‘Sorry,’ he shrugs defiantly. ‘I think he’s a prat. Simple as that.’

  I glance tenta
tively at Erin. She looks shell-shocked.

  ‘Henry, let’s not get carried away,’ I say, hoping to rescue the situation. ‘Gary isn’t a pra—’

  But before I can finish my sentence, I realize to my astonishment that Erin has started to giggle.

  ‘You know,’ she manages, ‘I think you might be right. He is a prat, isn’t he?’

  ‘A prat to end all prats,’ Henry says with a rousing thump of his fist. Erin shakes her head, laughing.

  ‘The Crown Prince of Prats.’ She looks close to hysterical now.

  He pauses and smiles. ‘That’s the spirit, Erin.’ She gazes at him gratefully.

  ‘Henry, you’re right,’ she says, lifting her glass. ‘Here’s to a future without Gary. A future without prats.’

  Chapter 17

  I’m sure my contribution to Erin’s emotional recovery was crucial. To the untrained eye, it might have appeared that Henry waltzed in and transformed her from a gibbering wreck to a triumphant feminist. But I’m sure I laid the foundations.

  ‘How’s Erin?’ asks Henry, after he returns from his morning run and fills a pint glass from the tap.

  ‘Still fragile.’ I take a bite of ‘slimming bread’ toast. It has the culinary appeal of the sweepings from a stable-floor. ‘I think it’ll be a long time before she turns a corner on Gary.’

  ‘Really?’ Henry wipes the sweat from his brow and downs half the glass. ‘That’s a shame. I hope she picks herself up soon.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ I say non-committally as I take a gulp of coffee. If I’m honest, I’ve been stunned by Erin’s apparent buoyancy since the break-up. I wouldn’t say she’s 100 per cent rehabilitated. But while I expected her to spend all week sobbing relentlessly, she’s been over here twice since it happened and hasn’t cried once – except to shed tears of laughter at Henry’s jokes. Even the crap ones. I can only put it down to her emotional turmoil.

  After my years of psychotherapy training, courtesy of the problem pages of Jackie, Cosmo and, latterly, Mariella Frostrup in the Observer, part of me wonders if I’m losing my touch. If I’d known all it would take was a couple of minor insults, I’d have done that at the start. It’s not as if I can’t come up with insults. After sitting opposite Drew for the last two years, I’ve become rather good at them.

  ‘I’d better make a move.’ I put my packed lunch box into my bag, relieved that this is the last one of the week. I can’t stomach another brown rice, alfalfa seed and red pepper salad, particularly since, as it’s Friday, I’ve run out of everything but brown rice.

  Still, it will have been worth it. I’ve stuck to my diet religiously for four days. If, after this, the jeans I’ve bought for my date with Paul don’t make my bum look like I’ve spent five years wired up to a Slendertone, I’ll be asking Diet World for my money back. At least, I would be if I’d renewed my membership in the last eighteen months.

  ‘Hopefully some of us will have more luck in the love-life department this weekend,’ I smile, putting my bag over my shoulder. ‘I’m out with Paul tonight, then you’re searching for Ms Right tomorrow. Exciting, hey?’

  ‘Oh, yes – I’d forgotten about that.’

  ‘You’d forgotten you were going out to pick someone up for the first time in your life? Are you mad, Henry?’

  He looks at me and smiles. ‘Have a good day at work.’

  ‘You too,’ I call, shutting the door behind me.

  Eleven hours later, I shut the same door and head to Paul’s local where we’ve arranged to meet. The second I step inside, my heart beating wildly, I see him next to the bar. He looks up and smiles. It’s that broad, twinkly-eyed expression I saw in the optician’s a week ago, and it makes my knees turn to Angel Delight.

  ‘She came,’ he grins, pulling out a stool. ‘It’s always good not to be stood up on a first date.’

  ‘What made you think I’d stand you up?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. You never know with beautiful women. They change their mind at the drop of a hat.’

  ‘Not me. Besides,’ I say, ‘I thought we were here to talk about PR. You never mentioned a date.’

  ‘Ah. Does that change things?’

  I shrug. ‘I suppose if I’m here we might as well make the most of it.’

  ‘Good. Then what would you like to drink?’

  Before long, Paul and I are deep in conversation, swapping anecdotes about our jobs and childhoods, discussing our favourite films and – to my deep enjoyment – indulging in some of the most outrageous flirting you’d find outside a French massage parlour. It also turns out we’ve got loads in common.

  ‘Isn’t it amazing that we’re both such outdoors fanatics?’ muses Paul. ‘Did I tell you about my climb up Ben Nevis last year?’

  Okay, so it’s not strictly true that I’m an outdoors fanatic. In fact, I barely know a crampon from a tampon – but I can’t let him know that.

  ‘Oh, I’ve never done that one,’ I reply, as if I’ve only missed it out because I’ve been training for K2 for three years.

  ‘You should,’ he says. ‘The views are fantastic.’

  After several hours and several glasses of wine, I can’t help but hope that – for once – this date is going to result in something longer-lasting than the others. For a start, I’m having more fun. Paul’s entertaining, funny, sexy and, even better, he hasn’t come to the conclusion that I’m a lunatic. Not yet, at least.

  ‘So what’s the deal with you and the guy you were with the other day? What was his name? Harry?’

  ‘Henry.’

  ‘Is there something going on between you two?’

  ‘Me and Henry?’ I suppress a grin. ‘Sorry, I . . . no. There’s nothing going on between me and Henry.’

  ‘Are you related?’

  ‘No, though he sometimes feels like my brother. He’s an old friend. My best friend. But there’s nothing more to it than that. Never has been.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replies, raising an eyebrow. ‘I get a sense that he would if he could.’

  ‘Would if he could what?’

  ‘You know,’ winks Paul. ‘But then, who wouldn’t, with you.’

  I shake my head vehemently. ‘You’re wrong. Honestly.’

  ‘Okay. Then, good.’

  ‘Good?’ I smile.

  ‘That way, I haven’t got competition.’

  Paul has moved closer to me and, with our faces inches apart, he smiles. It’s a smile that says: I’m about to kiss you. And you’re going to love it.

  Only, he doesn’t move. After what feels like ten minutes, but is probably less than ten seconds, I feel distinctly awkward.

  ‘Soooo,’ I muse, ‘exactly how long have you been an opti—’

  I’m interrupted by Paul’s lips, which are suddenly on mine, kissing me confidently, roughly. A wave of desire rushes through me as I breathe in his smell: sultry aftershave, mints and red wine. As I kiss him back, my unquenched libido goes into overdrive. I don’t care that people in the bar can see us. He moves his mouth to my ear and brushes away my hair.

  ‘The bar’s closing soon,’ he whispers. ‘Come back to my place.’

  Adrenalin courses through my body. ‘I . . . I don’t know. I should get back.’

  He stops, leans back on his stool and shrugs. ‘Okay.’

  I am hit by a wave of disappointment. I could kiss, I tell myself – just to continue our chat. Talking to him won’t break the first date rule. We could continue kissing, but nothing else. That’d be all right, surely?

  ‘Maybe I could consider it,’ I whisper, meeting his lips again. He returns my kiss as my pulse goes wild. He pulls away, stands up, grabs my coat and then my hand.

  ‘Follow me,’ he says, as I feel a flash of relief that I attended to my bikini line this afternoon.

  Chapter 18

  I don’t end up sleeping with Paul. I always knew I wouldn’t, but sometimes I surprise myself by how old-fashioned I am.

  Instead, when we get back to his house, the two blokes he share
s it with are competing with their girlfriends at SingStar. Never missing an opportunity to crucify an Abba track, I join in with gusto. We sing and drink until 3 a.m. At least, I sing; Paul abstains coolly, which would make me feel self-conscious if I was sober. When the others disappear to bed, things get steamy again on the sofa. Look, I never said I was a complete angel.

  I reluctantly call a halt to proceedings at five-thirty, determined to leave him wanting. This requires every bit of willpower I can muster – a challenge, given that my willpower is largely obliterated, along with my ability to walk or talk properly. I sometimes wonder how I’d have coped in the nineteenth century, when you had to wait until your wedding night before reaching the inner sanctum of your beloved’s trousers. Still, they didn’t have tequila slammers in the nineteenth century, so that probably helped.

  As I stagger out of my taxi and weave up our path and into bed, my mind is swirling with a combination of booze and excitement. I’ve been on a date and it went well! Really well! Unbelievable!

  I have a long lie-in the next morning and am woken by the sound of Henry’s piano music meandering through the flat. Henry’s a fantastic pianist – he plays everything from Beethoven to Black-Eyed Peas – but we have a rule in the flat that at the weekends he’s not allowed to touch it before midday. It therefore means I’ve slept in rather a long time. When I finally get up, Henry’s in the kitchen having clearly had a more industrious morning than me.

  ‘It went really well last night,’ I announce. I’m so hungover I could sand the floorboards with my tongue, but I still manage to dance round the kitchen.

  ‘I gathered. You haven’t been home that late since you accidentally got on the night bus to Blackpool. Do you want some coffee?’

  ‘Yeah, go on. God, Paul’s nice. And I really think he likes me.’

  Henry flicks on the kettle and spoons coffee into the cafetière. ‘That’s fantastic, Lucy.’

  ‘Isn’t it. Hey, are you okay?’

  ‘Of course. A bit anxious about tonight.’

  ‘You’ve got nothing to be anxious about. You know the theory now. All we’ve got to do is put it into practice.’