Don't You Forget About Me

by Mhairi McFarlane

  ‘Oh! Hi,’ Robin says, eyes widening. ‘Suddenly she is nowhere, and she is everywhere.’

  I gather myself, passing the change to Mr FAC 51.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘I’d heard it was good here,’ Robin says, as though I was going to accuse him of stalking.

  ‘You heard right,’ I say, in android wench tone, making it clear I don’t want personal interaction. ‘What’re you having, gentlemen?’ I continue, now false-bright.

  ‘Is this how we’re doing it, Georgina?’ Robin says. ‘Strangers. Yet more estranged than strangers, as I don’t get to introduce myself again.’

  The man he’s with looks from Robin to me and back again and I grind my teeth at how inappropriate, and inconsiderate, Robin always is.

  I pass an empty pint glass from palm to palm and say: ‘Lots of real ales.’

  Robin sighs, leans back, arms spread, both palms braced on the bar, as he surveys the pump labels. My back stiffens. Never mind Keith befouling the premises, I feel as if Robin is going to do some territorial crapping of his own. He’s an invader.

  ‘Think I will try a pint of First Blonde, thank you. It seems fitting. Al?’

  Ah, this must be his agent. I sat at Robin’s elbow during enough fraught to and fros over whether his fellow panellists commanded a higher fee, while he held his phone like it was an After Eight mint.

  ‘Same, thank you,’ Al says, awkward.

  I pull the pumps, wait for it to settle, take the money, pass the change, top them up, with Robin’s eyes locked on me the whole time.

  They’ll have one drink, maybe two, I tell myself, then go. Breathe. I serve them with a broad smile that I’m determined to keep fixed on my face for the duration of Robin’s visit.

  The table with Rav, Clem, Jo and my sister and brother-in-law is at the far side, and they are yet to notice Robin’s presence. I find my phone in my bag, text Jo: ‘Robin’s here. Tell everyone to act indifferent, like I’ve barely said a word about him since we broke up xx’

  And to think I thought this shift would be stressful for an entirely different reason.

  Yet the speed with which Robin sinks his beer, and is soon up at the bar holding foam-streaked glasses for refills, is not promising. He was always a lightweight who got bladdered easily.

  Kitty hisses: ‘Georgina, Georgina, that’s Robin McNee! He was on that show on Dave last year,’ to me, after she serves him, and he sits back down, with more meaningful eyeballing at me. He glowered at me the whole time Kitty got his drinks, while I pretended to concentrate on rinsing the nozzles on the glass cordial bottles.

  Yuck, I hate how he’s trying to act as if we had this deep connection, now cruelly severed.

  ‘Yeah I know,’ I say. ‘How do you know who he is?’

  ‘Idiot Soup! Ta ta ta tum tum tum, IDIOT SOUP,’ she trills the theme tune to the dire panel show on Dave, on which Robin is a regular fixture. ‘My ex loved it. Six cans, doner kebab from Chubby’s, Idiot Soup, perfect night in, he said.’

  ‘Not surprised he’s your ex,’ I say with a smile, and Kitty says: ‘How did you recognise him if you don’t watch it?’

  ‘Another regretted ex,’ I say, which I congratulate myself on being both a niftily misleading and yet entirely accurate answer.

  My feeling of self-congratulation is short lived.

  Robin’s table is littered with empty packets folded into foam-streaked glasses which I’m avoiding collecting, his voice is loud enough to carry in its inebriated ebullience. Robin’s always been a half pint warrior in terms of tolerance, the signs here are not good.

  By my count, Robin’s had three pints now, with two sidecar shots of Spud potato vodka – damn it, The Wicker, do you have to stock interesting spirits with artistic bottles that catch your eye, and provide playful excuses for excessive imbibing? And now he’s back up for pint four. It’s obvious he’s not letting Al get a round so that he doesn’t miss a chance to harass me.

  ‘Six pounds forty-two pence, please.’ I set what I dearly hope will be his last drinks on the beer towel.

  ‘How are you able to turn your feelings off, and pull the shutters down?’ Robin says.

  I ignore this and turn back to the till.

  The answer of course is that there weren’t many feelings to turn off, and what I’m thinking is ‘get lost’. But this is a trap – if I say that, Robin will act even more like a wounded animal.

  And it is an act, whether he thinks it is or not – he’s enjoying trying on the new role of spurned lover.

  He told me, when we were together: ‘I’m not being, like, Justin Bieber, but people tend to fall for me rather than me fall for them, which is useful material, as a writer.’ I should’ve said, You sound nice, and got out at my soonest opportunity, but I thought I had things to learn from Robin. As a writer, as a maverick mind. Oh, Horspool, you dick.

  I bet because I finished with Robin, it’s a novelty to him, not getting to choose the moment.

  I mean, I’d always subconsciously anticipated my own dumping. I wasn’t so stupid or deluded that I hadn’t gleaned what my treatment would be, from his tales of his exes.

  ‘I’m no use as a man or beast to you during the Edinburgh Fest, it wouldn’t be fair on you, the comedians’ trade fair takes every drop of vigour in me I have. Let’s give each other our freedom for the time being, and see if we reconnect, further down the line.’ (Translation, he had his eye on removing the dungarees of some sassy petite American woman, lower down the bill from him at The Pleasance, and three weeks is a long time to go without when you’re paying rent on a place in the New Town. However, should he feel randy and at a loose end on return to Sheffield, it will be fine to call me. She’s cool with it, she’s really cool.)

  He’s mistaken the surprise of this inconvenience for heartbreak.

  ‘I can’t stop looking at you, Georgina,’ Robin says, under his breath, as I give him his change. I drop character for a second in irritation and snap: ‘Yeah, can you not?’

  I hadn’t noticed Lucas behind us until this moment, and I can sense him listening. I curse Robin.

  ‘Everything alright?’ Lucas says to me, and I say ‘Yes, fine,’ with a speed that’s almost a snap.

  What makes me mad is that if Robin were a woman, this would be called bunny boiler behaviour. As a man, and an artist no less, it’s noble suffering. This is a whole dark third album, about how she done gone ruined you.

  Another customer appears and I say ‘YES, PLEASE?’ pointedly, and step away.

  When Robin sits down, I notice the FAC 51 t-shirt man has gone up to him, a friend in tow. Oh, no – selfies? Signing beer mats? Lots of jovial male back and forth and handshaking?

  ‘They recognise Robin McNee too!’ Kitty excitedly hiss-whispers. ‘Lucas, you know who he is, right?’

  ‘Can’t say I do,’ Lucas says, and his eyes move to me, revealing he definitely overheard the nature of Robin’s remarks.

  Fifteen minutes later, and Robin’s up and swaying for round five, pumped up with this impromptu demonstration of his celebrity, and hoppy ale. As I pull his pint, he leans dramatically on the bar, head in hand.

  ‘George, George. One drink. Just go for one drink with me, that’s all I ask. That’s all the time I need. If you decide against after that, then I will never bother you again. You have my word.’

  Kitty’s Bobbi Brown-lipglossed mouth falls open as she witnesses this exchange. I put the glass down.

  ‘Can you serve him?’ I say quietly to Kitty. She frowns as I excuse myself to the ladies.

  She pounces on me as soon as I’m back.

  ‘Robin McNee’s asked you out? And you’re saying no?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘You’re not tempted?’

  ‘Nup.’

  ‘He’s not your type?’

  On the periphery of my vision, I see Robin moving around, and when I risk a proper look, he’s dragged a chair into the middle of the room and is clambering atop it.

  I’m g
oing to kill him. God help me, I’m actually going to commit a murder.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention,’ Robin says, struggling to balance himself, while waving his arms as if flagging a passing motorist for help. I feel a contained rush, a moment when I should be galvanised to Do Something. But what? I glance at Kitty, who’s rapt.

  The pub falls instantly silent. ‘Thank you. I want your help with something …’

  Lucas appears out of the kitchen, holding his phone, and stops short at the sight of a man doing stand-up on a chair.

  I feel sick. I want to run at Robin, shrieking, and force him down. But I can’t afford to become part of the tableau. If I start pushing and shoving with Robin, it’s a rerun of Thor the stripper, without the hammer and the thong.

  To have one physical fight with a man in your workplace might be unfortunate, two is careless.

  ‘This incredible woman here, is called Georgina,’ he points at me, unsteadily. All heads turn. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘Yes!’ Kitty squeaks and I shake my head at her while she mouths ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Robin, stop this now,’ I say to him, with all the restrained ferocity I can muster without raising my voice too much. ‘I’m not joking. Get down.’

  I feel helpless in a way you don’t often experience beyond childhood, like when I let go of my helium shark balloon in the city centre, circa age seven. As it soared up and up I tried to believe it was going to miraculously snag on something and be returned to me, when in fact I knew, as it bounced on air currents, that I was spectator to it dancing away forever. Robin is that sodding balloon, except right now I’d happily see him electrocuted by a far-away pylon.

  He addresses the room: ‘I need you kindly patrons of The Wicker to back me up here.’

  I don’t remember Robin ever talking like he’s a character in Blackadder this much before. Maybe like so much else, I tuned it out.

  ‘Myself and this’ – he gestures towards me – ‘incredible woman had a blissful six months together. Then the other week I ruined it by sleeping with my PA. Georgina caught us together. In the act. In flagrante delicto.’

  I can’t look left or right, I’m so viscerally embarrassed. Utter, utter bastard. He’s buzzing from this. Lucas is staring at me, frowning. I read his expression as: What should I do?

  Oh God, the disgrace of it.

  I look over at my friends, and my sister. They are watching, mouths agape. Two shows this evening, for the price of one.

  A murmur goes round the pub and I detect the odd stifled laugh. Jesus, is Al filming this? He has his phone out and held aloft, silly grin on his face.

  ‘This sordid act meant nothing to me. It even involved tying each other up and ice cream, like we were the Budgens version of 9½ Weeks. Let me tell you, I’m more Mr Nine And A Half Minutes really.’

  Gasps, laughs. Bastard.

  ‘I’m ashamed of how stupid I was to risk what I had with Georgina. I’m not afraid to admit I was wrong, and beg forgiveness. Georgina,’ Robin turns to me, chair legs wobbling, Al following the action through his phone with shaky pan round, ‘I’m in love with you—’

  An audible ‘awww’ echoes at this. What the hell? They’re actually buying this as a Richard Curtis scene, rather than a horror movie?

  ‘I’ve begged her for a second chance, to no avail. Please can I enlist your help to try to convince her? Who here thinks she should give a man prepared to lay himself bare like this a second chance? Put your hands up if so.’

  A pause, and every arm appears to be thrust into the air, apart from mine and the table with my friends and family. And Lucas’s.

  ‘Thank you, thank you!’ Robin bellows. ‘You are wonderful! Look Georgina, look.’

  Kitty’s arm is in the bloody air and she’s grinning wildly.

  ‘What do you say? One drink! One small chance.’

  I shake my head and a boooooo rolls around the room.

  ‘Think about it?’ Robin says, palms pressed together in prayer. Will acquiescing end this faster?

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I say, with straight face. I recognise this feeling, I know it of old: accepting my fate with a determined indifference, acting as if words thrown at me haven’t left an impression, and my God, I hate it.

  ‘Yes!!’ Robin pumps his fist. He’s only pleased to have some sort of result because he has an audience. If he thinks coercion by humiliation will work, good luck to him. The whole room now knows I caught my ex inside someone else. It was his fault, so why do I feel so exposed? He’s trying to drag me down with him. I was someone else here, but now I’m that woman who Robin McNee double-timed. I’m unclean, I’ve got Robin’s words all over me.

  ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ Robin says to the room. He gives a small bow, chair threatening to give away, and jumps down. There’s a smattering of applause. Someone male shouts ‘G’wan, Georgina!’ and whistles.

  A murmur of chatter restarts and Robin walks back up to me, flushed with triumph.

  ‘There you are. It’s the will of the people, like Brexit.’

  ‘Get out,’ I say, through a ventriloquist dummy’s smile, for the benefit of onlookers. ‘How dare you …’

  We’re interrupted. Lucas has walked over from the kitchen and is stood next to Robin. He taps him on the arm.

  ‘Can I ask you to leave, please?’

  ‘Who are you?’ Robin says. ‘On what authority?’

  ‘I’m the owner.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘Disturbing other drinkers.’

  ‘They seemed to enjoy it.’

  ‘It’s not a democracy, it’s my benign dictatorship. Go.’

  ‘A word to the wise,’ Robin says to Lucas. ‘See the bigger picture. This here is a love story for the ages and you can choose your role in it. Don’t be “heartless landlord”.’

  ‘I think you’ve got our pub confused with eHarmony. Here we are,’ he escorts Robin towards his coat, lying over a chair. As Al stands up, Lucas says, picking up his phone before he can: ‘Can you delete that film you took, please?’

  ‘I’m allowed to film if I want!’

  ‘Not on these premises without permission first, unless you want a big fine. What’s it to be, big fine or deleting it?’

  Al huffs and puffs and swears and holds his hand out for the phone, swiping, prodding a button and when Lucas, squinting at the screen, is satisfied, he ushers them both doorwards.

  ‘Excuse me, excuse me.’

  They’re stopped in their tracks by Gareth from The Star.

  ‘Robin McNee, isn’t it? Perhaps you’d like to be involved with this? You could help judge!’

  Gareth is waving a Share Your Shame bill under his nose and Robin takes it.

  Oh, no.

  ‘Or maybe you’d like to contribute to this next week? You missed the first one but I don’t think it’d matter … Very informal, few drinks, open mike kind of thing. I’m sure you’d be a huge hit.’

  God, Gareth is practically simpering.

  ‘It’s here? Is there a fee? You know who this is?’ Al the agent says, with a lip curl.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Lucas says, ‘I just asked these gentlemen to leave,’ and Robin and Al are unceremoniously ejected into the night.

  ‘He’s been tipped to win the Perrier award, you know!’ Gareth says to Lucas, after the door’s closed. ‘He’s going places.’

  ‘He can go any place he likes, as long as it isn’t this pub,’ Lucas says, and Gareth shakes his head.

  I am torn between gratitude at care for me, in Lucas’s intervention, and a sense that I’m polluting the pub’s reputation, and Lucas had felt nothing for me but a mixture of disdain and pity.

  My friends and family, whose vantage point means they’ve not caught what went on in the doorway, but have definitely caught what went on with Robin’s speech, have decided to make a tactful exit to spare my blushes.

  ‘We’d have shouted at him and pushed him off that chair,’ Cl
em says. ‘But Jo says you didn’t want us to make a fuss?’

  I nod, miserably.

  Esther and Mark are trying to work out how to arrange their faces. I could scream, cry, pummel Robin into a bloody pulp.

  Tonight had been about me trying to do something bold and constructive for a change, and thanks to Robin humiliating me in my workplace, it’s all but obliterated.

  When everyone has left, and I’m mopping up, I see the topic for the next episode of Share Your Shame has been posted up on the pub noticeboard.

  Your Worst Date.

  Lucas comes back in from putting the bins out in a sudden downpour, running his hands through the water in his black hair, pulling a sodden t-shirt away from his body and letting it limply snap back. Robin has turned off my pilot light for the time being but I can still appreciate the loveliness dispassionately. Lucas catches me staring and jerks his head towards the poster. ‘He’s barred, so don’t worry about that,’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘And thanks for getting him out this evening. I’m still mortified. And furious. But mostly mortified.’

  ‘No thanks needed, I ban tossers who harass my staff as a matter of course.’

  I’m going to say ‘thanks’ again but it’s witless, so I say nothing.

  ‘That is who he is, isn’t it?’ Lucas says, hesitantly, keys in his hand, Keith at his heels. ‘I mean, tell me if this is a Taylor / Burton type thing and he’ll be your boyfriend again by next week, as then the admissions policy needs to be more flexible.’

  ‘Oh God, no!’ I say. ‘No. Absolutely not.’

  ‘OK.’ He rattles the keys.

  I see Lucas trying to fit me together with this man, who he got the measure of in ten seconds flat. No doubt the ‘fitting us together’ mental process damages his opinion of me. I wilt. It damages my opinion of me.

  23

  A constant low level static crackle of sexual interest and harassment, like next door’s humming maggot tanks, is something I am so used to in the hospitality trade, I mostly tune it out.

  Until The Wicker, I’d never seen it happen to a man before. It didn’t take long for Lucas McCarthy to arouse the interest of the female clientele. Possibly some males too, though they’re less conspicuous.