by Mike Gayle
38
‘She crops up a lot this woman, doesn’t she?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, you bumped into her yesterday, we saw her in Moseley that time and of course there’s the little fact that you have a framed photo of her.’
‘It’s a framed photo of me and a bunch of mates taken when I was eighteen! I didn’t even remember I had it until I cleared out the loft.’
‘I’m just wondering what’s so special about her.’
‘There’s nothing special about her.’
‘Really? So what is she to you exactly?’
‘She’s a mate.’
‘Who you’ve slept with.’
‘Yeah . . . but . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Nothing. Can we just drop it?’
‘No, we can’t. I don’t understand why you’re being so evasive.’
‘I’m not. I told you it’s complicated.’
‘Why was that guy we saw her with so frosty with you that night? Is it that you want her back?’
I can’t believe she’s asking me this question, let alone expecting a response. I voluntarily tell her the truth and now she wants to use it as evidence for the prosecution. ‘Why would you even ask me that? It was just coffee. I bumped into her, I told her I didn’t want to talk and was needlessly rude, she got upset, I felt bad and decided to patch things up by taking her for a coffee. That’s it, that’s everything. There were no stolen glances, there was no moment between us, and I most certainly don’t want her back. I just didn’t want to waste any more energy on hating people I don’t need to hate. You must get that surely?’
Rosa looks at me sharply. ‘What, because of Jonny?’ I look surprised, Rosa’s never used his name before and I know I’m not supposed to know. ‘Tory told me that she talked to you about him – she never has been able to keep a secret.’
‘But why would you want to keep it a secret? We talked about him that night at the party, remember?’
‘But we didn’t go into all the details did we? I never asked too many questions about your exes and you never asked about mine and that’s the way I wanted to keep it.’
‘It’s not like it’s a big deal. I’ve got exes, you’ve got exes, who cares?’
‘I do,’ she sighs, ‘and besides, this one is different isn’t she?’
‘We’ve known each other a long time if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘How long?’
‘Since we were seventeen.’
Rosa shakes her head as if she was beginning to wonder what she’s doing with me. ‘I really do care about you, Matt.’
‘And I care about you.’
‘But I think I care more and I’m fine with that, I really am. And I don’t make a big deal about not knowing what you’ll do once your house is sold, and I don’t make a big deal about you having to stay in touch with your ex-wife either, but your being friends with Ginny is just a step too far. I’ve never wanted us to completely air our pasts because mine is nothing like yours. You’re thirty-nine, Matt, I don’t need a long line of your exes parading around in my mind making me feel inadequate and I certainly don’t want to give them room to play in my reality.’
‘And they won’t. Seeing Ginny today was as much a shock for me as it was for you. You saw how I reacted when we saw her that time. She’s not someone I want to spend a lot of time with and like I said before, today was about trying to make peace. If I had an ulterior motive why would I tell you that I saw her in the first place?’ Rosa doesn’t answer and so I take a second stab at it. ‘Look, I’m sorry this has upset you, it was a one-off, I don’t expect it to happen again . . . in fact there’s no reason for it to happen again. So why don’t you let me try and make it up to you? Let’s go out, see a film and have something to eat afterwards?’
‘That would be really nice,’ she says, and I breathe a sigh of relief, ‘but we still need to sort out this problem.’
‘There’s nothing to sort out,’ I reply. ‘I just won’t see her.’
Rosa shakes her head. ‘With my hand on my heart, I want to promise you that Jonny will never play a part in my life again, not even for a second. From this moment on, he’s history.’
I have no idea how to respond to this but eventually say, ‘Fine, if that’s what you want to do.’
She looks at me. ‘What about you?’
‘You want me to say that Ginny is history too?’ Rosa nods. ‘Well, fine. It’s highly likely given that she’s about to marry my ex-best mate.’
‘That’s not enough. I want you to promise you won’t see or talk to her again.’
‘There’s no need for you to be like this.’
‘Well, I think there’s every need.’ I can see that this is a deal-breaker. AlI I have to do is say the wrong thing and she will jettison everything we have together.
‘Fine,’ I say, ‘if it’s what you want I won’t see her again.’
‘That wasn’t about you,’ says Gerry at work the following morning. ‘That was all about the ex, Mr Hatwearer.’
‘Yeah,’ I look over at Odd Owen who is standing on a chair with one foot balanced precariously on the back of the seat, cleaning the tops of the shelves. ‘I had sort of guessed that but it freaked me out. Rosa’s a great person but it really felt like I was being put in my place.’
‘That’s because you were. She’s staked her claim. You’re hers now and she wants everyone to know it.’ Gerry laughs and tugs at the back of my shirt, trying to expose bare flesh. ‘Just looking for the mark where she’s branded her name on you!’
Later, as Gerry and I are moving one of the shelves back into place that Odd Owen had knocked over during his cleaning attempt, I feel a tap on my shoulder.
‘Matt? Matt Beckford? How are you, mate?’
Gerry laughs. ‘Is there anyone you don’t know?’
I do the introductions. ‘Gerry, this is Craig Fowler. Craig Fowler, meet Gerry Hammond.’
Back in my school days Craig Fowler was the very definition of Mr Average. He wasn’t cool (at least not if you considered Dungeons and Dragons role-playing games the height of sophistication), he wasn’t the least bit athletic (I was once ordered to sit with him while he recovered from an asthma attack brought on by a cross-country run) and out of a year group of two hundred pupils he wasn’t even in the top one hundred and ninety-nine vying for a spot as the class clown. He was just sort of there, academically able but middle of the road, and it was clear he was never going to shine. So when we do the catching-up thing and he tells me he’s got a place in London and makes his living as a club DJ I’m more than a little stunned.
‘I know,’ he says, looking at my face. ‘Weird isn’t it?’
I leave Gary to sort the shelves as Craig gives me the low-down on the last twenty-odd years. Heading to London to do a law degree he ended up ‘falling in with the London party scene’. While still doing his degree he started running various club nights in Brixton, got his girlfriend pregnant, began DJ’ing to make extra cash on the side, then split up with his girlfriend after three years. The DJ’ing took off and he moved to Ibiza for a decade, bought a bar, was made to sell the bar at gunpoint by drug dealers then returned to London and started running club nights around the city.
If I’d heard this kind of story from any of the other kids I’d gone to school with I wouldn’t have believed a word of it, but seeing the transformation from who Craig was to Craig now convinces me that anything is possible.
‘So now you do what exactly?’ I ask as he concludes his tale.
‘I’m only up here for a few days seeing my mum, she’s not very well at the minute; just had an operation. Back in London my day to day stuff is DJ’ing, promoting, the occasional bit of producing but basically, mate, I just have a laugh. How about you?’
‘I work in the IT industry,’ I explain, feeling a bit inadequate, ‘I’m taking a sort of sabbatical at the minute.’
‘What sort of thing in IT?’
‘Try me.’
‘I oversaw the design, implementation and maintenance of software for financial systems.’
Craig’s laugh says it all. ‘I’m trying, mate, I’m really trying but I can’t find a way in.’
‘Believe me, there isn’t one.’
‘But you enjoy it?’
I shake my head. ‘Not for a long time.’
Craig nods sagely. ‘Life’s too short to be doing stuff that doesn’t fire you up.’
‘You’re telling me.’
‘So you’ve got a plan then?’
I recall my dad asking me that very same question on our trip to my sister’s. ‘This is it, sort of. I handed in my notice a while back, my house in London is on the market, I’ve moved back here and now I’m just taking it easy for as long as I can and then . . . well, something should spring up.’
‘You’ll be all right mate,’ he tells me, ‘I was a bit like that when I got back from Ibiza. Takes a while to get up to speed.’
When I get home that night I tell Rosa about bumping into Craig Fowler and when I tell her that he’s apparently a famous club DJ now, she looks at me as though I’m joking and then sits at her laptop, pulls up a picture of him (the front cover of a dance music magazine with the headline: the king of ibiza returns!!! and asks me if this is him.
‘That’s Craig,’ I reply, looking over her shoulder at the screen.
‘He’s one of the biggest DJ names in the country and you went to school with him!’
I feel more than a bit weird. Was nondescript Craig Fowler really the most famous out of all the people I went to school with? I feel like I’m trapped in an episode of The Twilight Zone. ‘Not only did I go to school with him but today I sold him two Kraftwerk albums on vinyl, and some mid-eighties Grace Jones.’
Craig Fowler’s story stays with me longer than I want it to and for the next few days a dark cloud of despair comes over me as I begin thinking about how close my fortieth is, how I am nowhere near being where I thought I’d be at this landmark age and how I’m heading for a divorce. Just when I’m at my lowest, as I sit on the sofa in front of my laptop watching a YouTube video of some pop star I’ve never heard of singing the praises of Craig’s remixing skills, I get a text from Ginny: Could really do with a friend right now. Any chance we could meet tomorrow?
There are many reasons why I should say no, not least of which is Rosa who is sitting less than five feet away from me at the dining table. I’d promised her that I wouldn’t see Ginny and I meant it. But there’s something about Ginny’s message that sounds desperate, and for all I know she could really be in trouble; as much as I want to do right by Rosa I don’t think I could live with myself if something was really wrong with Ginny and I’d ignored her. I’ll see her, hear what she’s got to say and that will be that. And Rosa, thankfully, will be none the wiser.
39
The following day I’m in the middle of telling Gerry about Rosa’s plans for my fortieth birthday when Ginny enters the shop. It’s a bright but fairly cold day and her clothing – a black quilted jacket, jeans and boots – reflects that she is a grown up, a fully fledged member of society, and I feel in comparison like a student at best and a dosser at worst.
‘So this is what you’ve been doing with yourself,’ she says, walking over to the till. ‘It’s a really nice set-up, isn’t it? I’ve often walked past and thought about popping in.’
‘Gerry, this is Ginny, an old school friend of mine.’ I turn to Ginny. ‘This is Gerry Hammond.’
Gerry shakes her hand and I can see from the impish grin on his face that he fancies Ginny.
‘So you’re a friend of Matt’s are you? He hasn’t got many, has he?’
‘He’s got a few,’ Ginny laughs, ‘and I hear you’ve been taking good care of him.’
‘Someone’s got to, haven’t they? Who knows what kind of trouble he’d get into otherwise.’
‘Has Matt told you how much we both used to love The Pinfolds when we were students? We must have seen you play at least a couple of dozen times in Birmingham alone, and then of course there was that amazing gig at the Astoria – do you remember that, Matt? – we all went down to London by coach and didn’t get back home until three in the morning. There was barely anyone at sixth form the next day because we were all too busy sleeping off our hangovers.’
Gerry laughs. ‘I got pretty trashed that night too but even I can remember it being one of the best gigs we ever played. I looked out into the crowd and thought: This is it, we’ve finally made it. You should come out with us one night . . . once I’ve had a few the old Pinfolds stories just keep pouring out.’
‘That would be amazing,’ says Ginny, ‘a real teen dream come true. It’s completely mad that Matt knows you so well and that you’re sharing a place.’
‘We’d better be off,’ I say quickly, in the hope of diverting Ginny from the look of confusion on Gerry’s face, ‘I’ve only got an hour.’
‘Well,’ says Ginny over her shoulder, ‘it was really nice to meet you.’
‘You too.’ Gerry throws me a quizzical glance. ‘Hopefully we’ll meet again soon and have a proper talk.’
‘Where do you fancy eating?’ asks Ginny as we step out on to the pavement.
‘I’ve already got it sorted,’ I reply, ‘follow me.’
I lead Ginny part way down the high street before coming to a halt in front of a dubious-looking alleyway sandwiched between a tapas bar and a Subway. It looks like the kind of alley you’d go to only if you had a limited amount of time and a body to dump.
Ginny grins. ‘I know where this is! Have you actually got keys?’
‘One of the volunteers lives just round the corner, so she’s got some, and she lent them to me this morning.’
We are standing in front of the entrance to Moseley Park and Pool: eleven acres of parkland that once belonged to a huge manor house and which was saved for posterity by a group of wealthy businessmen in the late nineteenth century. Surrounded by shops and houses on all sides it’s invisible to the casual passer-by but to those residents who pay a nominal annual subscription for a key it’s a blissful escape from an increasingly urban sprawl.
We walk in silence down a muddy path with brambles on either side that gradually opens up into a wide, tree-lined clearing. Taking a moment to get our bearings we walk along a path that leads off to the left down a slight incline until we reach our destination, the focal point of the whole park: Moseley Pool. We stand at the water’s edge and watch a family of ducks going about their business before making our way to a bench a few feet away.
‘How long is it since we last came here?’ asks Ginny as I take two pre-packed sandwiches and two bottles of water out of my bag.
I do the calculations. It was our friend Elliot’s family who had the keys and it would probably have been when all of us were home at the same time and the weather was decent so . . . ‘I think we’re probably talking the summer break of our second year at university.’
‘That long?’ Ginny shakes her head in disbelief. ‘It only feels like yesterday since we were all working in rubbish temp jobs to whittle down our overdrafts.’
‘I think I was working in the Unspoilt By Progress that summer. Do you remember you all used to come and see me on a Friday night and I’d sneak you the odd free beer.’
‘Just like I used to filch free crisps and chocolate for Bev and Kat when I was working at that sandwich shop over in the jewellery quarter. I feel guilty now that I think about it. Bev and Kat were in there all the time, the poor owner must have gone broke with the amount of stuff I gave away.’
I offer up the sandwiches. ‘Chicken salad or Brie and grape?’
‘You first.’
I take the Brie and grape knowing full well that’s the one Ginny wants, pretend to open it and at the last moment snatch the chicke
n salad from her hands.
‘I thought that was too weird to be true,’ she says, opening the packaging, ‘I would’ve bet good money that the chicken salad was yours. It’s all you ever ate in sixth form.’ She takes a bite of her sandwich. ‘This is delicious.’
We sit quietly munching for a few moments. A woman with two pre-school kids, a boy and a girl, passes by and the boy waves and asks what’s in our sandwiches, forcing his mortified mother to apologise on his behalf.
‘It’s OK,’ I reply, and turn to the boy, ‘Mine’s ready salted slugs on cheese and hers is crushed butterflies and bacon. You can have a bite if you like.’
The children writhe in paroxysms of laughter and ask me to say it again but their mum tells them to stop bothering people trying to eat their lunch.
We watch them trundle off down the path and Ginny takes a sip of her water. ‘How are things going with your new girlfriend? You didn’t mention her the other day. Is everything still OK?’
‘She’s good, thanks,’ I reply, relieved that this is coming out. ‘She’s in Wolverhampton all day today taking meetings with a gallery there.’
Ginny seems impressed. ‘What does she do?’
‘She works in arts funding. I suppose you’d call her a project manager.’
‘Sounds like a great job.’
‘It is,’ I reply, ‘and she’s good at it too, really dedicated.’ I reason that I should probably ask after Gershwin if only out of politeness. ‘How’s Gershwin?’
Ginny sighs. ‘Not great really. He’s under loads of stress at work. Last week they announced that they’re making everyone on his pay grade reapply for their own jobs, and of course they’re cutting positions at the same time so you can imagine how horrible the atmosphere is.’