by Mike Gayle
It’s after seven as I arrive at Ginny’s on foot, having dropped off Zoe’s car along with the most expensive chocolates I could find at the local Shell garage. It feels almost criminal to even think about ringing her doorbell for a second time in twenty-four hours given the havoc I caused last time around.
A short, sharp, shrill burst of noise and the act is done. Now all I have to do is wait and take what’s coming my way, whatever that might be. Another punch in the face? A bucket of water? A threat to call the police? It’s impossible to calculate what a woman might be capable of when you’ve single-handedly destroyed her relationship and her dreams.
Ginny opens the door and her face falls.
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to make things right.’
‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough?’
‘I’m sorry, Gin, really I am.’
‘So sorry that you sneaked away this morning without saying a word?’
Hoping to lighten the mood by a few degrees I hold my hands in the air as if in surrender. ‘Guilty as charged.’
‘Do you think this is some kind of joke?’ she spits. ‘Do you think anything about this situation is even remotely amusing? I’m so angry with you right now, Matt! Why do you always come back home when things get tough? Why did you have to spring back into my life and ruin everything? I was fine before you came back from London and now look! Are you happy now that we’re all as miserable as you were when you arrived? Well, you’ve done your job, so why don’t you just go back to London and stay there for good!’
For the second time in twenty-four hours Ginny slams her front door in my face but whereas last time I felt indignant, this time I know she’s in the right. She’s right about me always running back home. She’s right about me spreading misery left, right and centre and she’s right about the disaster I leave in my wake. I don’t need Ginny to love me. I’m not sure I even need her to like me, but I can’t stand having her hate me.
I ring the doorbell again. Just once but long enough to get her attention. She opens the door, but rather than launching another verbal attack she simply heads down the hallway to the living room without saying a word and sits down on the sofa. Reasoning it wise to keep my distance, I take a seat in the chair opposite and watch as her cat takes up residence in his mistress’s lap and purrs loudly for attention.
‘How’s your face?’ she asks eventually. She seems less angry now, not exactly at peace but less like she is about to hit me.
‘A bit sore, but nothing I can’t live with.’
‘I can’t believe he thumped you like that.’
‘If I’d been in his shoes I’m sure I would have done the same.’
‘Zoe said the only reason he didn’t do any permanent damage was because you were so drunk that your body didn’t resist the punch. What were you thinking, coming round here in that state?’
‘I wasn’t thinking at all.’ Alarmingly this is the absolute truth. ‘A lot of stuff that had been brewing for a while came to a head last night and I just needed someone to talk to.’
‘And I turned you away.’ For the first time I feel like Ginny’s really listening to me. ‘You said it last night, and you were right: you’ve always been there for me in the past but last night I wasn’t there for you was I?’
‘It was a difficult situation.’
‘And one I helped to create, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t let you down.’
‘And it doesn’t mean that I had to go shouting my head off like an idiot either. Just let me know where Gershwin is and I’ll go and see him and tell him it was all lies.’
‘But it isn’t though, is it? I did sleep with you; you did come with me to my gran’s funeral, and if this whole mess proves anything it’s that trying not to hurt people by keeping the truth from them never works.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘I don’t think there is anything you can do. I called Gershwin this morning but he barely said a word.’
‘Well at least let me try.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. Where would you even begin?’
‘With the truth. That seems as good a place to start as any.’
The address Ginny gives is a decent taxi ride away from Kings Heath, so I walk up to the high street in search of a cab and eventually pick one up outside the Hare and Hounds. The driver and I get talking and it turns out that his cousin who’s about my age went to Kings Heath Comprehensive. When he tells me the kid’s name is Paul Granger, it rings a faint bell but not loudly enough for me to picture his face or recall anything about him. Nonetheless, I feel a connection has been made, we have succeeded in making the world just that little bit smaller and as we reach our destination I realise that in spite of my initial reticence to see people from my past, having these connections has been one of the best things about being home. Once I’m back in London I won’t be bumping into people I know in the supermarket, or making conversation with cabbies whose cousins were in the year below me at school or catching up with schoolmates whose lives have changed beyond all recognition. It’ll be business as usual and I’ll return to being one of the herd on the Tube reading a book, newspaper or playing Angry Birds on my phone surrounded by a community of travellers with whom I’ll never exchange a word.
The cab pulls up at a nice little terrace on a tree-lined road a stone’s throw from Bearwood high street. I ring the bell and a grey-haired guy answers the door and I tell him I’m looking for Gershwin. The man welcomes me inside and as he makes his way along the hallway he calls out: ‘You’ve got a visitor!’ As we arrive in the living room a confused-looking Gershwin stands up and stares at me.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve come to talk.’
Gershwin’s friend looks concerned. ‘Everything all right, mate?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ he replies steadily, not taking his eyes off me.
His friend hesitates before addressing Gershwin. ‘Emma’s upstairs putting Jake to bed. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.’
‘Cheers,’ replies Gershwin. ‘This shouldn’t take too long.’
I enter the room and close the door behind me. The only noise in the room comes from the TV.
‘I haven’t come to make trouble.’
‘So why are you here?’
‘To tell you the whole truth.’
‘Isn’t that what you did last night?’
‘If it was maybe I wouldn’t be standing here right now.’
A flicker of suspicion crosses Gershwin’s face. ‘Are you saying you were lying?’
I shake my head. ‘Everything I said was true but it’s not the full picture. The bit I missed out last night is that Ginny loves you.’
Gershwin looks at me blankly.
‘Listen,’ I continue, ‘I know there’s a lot of stuff I could go on about but seriously, what would be the point? All that matters is that Ginny chose you. She wants to be with you.’ I hold out my hand. ‘I know with everything that’s gone on we’re not going to be friends but for old times’ sake let’s at least try not to be enemies.’
For a moment Gershwin simply stares at me and I wonder whether he’s about to finish off what he started last night but then, albeit reluctantly, he shakes my hand.
‘Before all this kicked off Ginny and I were talking about moving . . .’
‘She told me you were looking at Bournville or maybe Kings Norton. They’re both really nice areas. You should have no problem finding a nice place around there.’
‘Thing is, it turns out we’re moving a bit further than that. I got told last week that my job’s relocating to Bristol . . . and with her being pregnant, it feels like we’re getting a fresh start.’
‘Ginny’s pregnant?’
Gershwin nods. ‘We found out last week.’
It’s a real shock. Ginny and Gershwin, they’re going to be a family. They’re moving on. They’re making the life they want to lead instead of wai
ting for it to happen. ‘Congratulations, mate. I really mean it. I wish you two nothing but the best.’
Gershwin walks me to the front door. I feel like we both have a lot to say but aren’t sure how to say it. I get the feeling though that the second I’ve said goodbye he’ll be on his way back to Ginny. Why wouldn’t he? He’s got everything to look forward to.
We shake hands one last time.
‘Look after yourself, mate, OK?’
‘You too.’ I walk away but at the front gate Gershwin calls out after me. I stop and turn. ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ he says, and for a moment I see in his eyes a glimpse of the cheeky schoolboy who used to be my best friend in all the world.
51
Looking up at 128 Whitehouse Lane silhouetted against the night sky as I climb out of a minicab my thoughts turn to ponder the sort of reception I’m in for from my housemates. I haven’t had so much as a text from any of them all day. As I walk up the path however I’m surprised by how calm I feel. It’s as if last night’s antics burned up the last residue of my lifetime’s supply of angst and now all that’s left is me. Truth is, I’ve indulged myself for too long, over too little. Stuff happens, that’s life, but the point of it all is not to let it sink you.
I open the front door to see Aisling, Reena, Clive, Dan and Alexi sitting frozen around the kitchen table, waiting to see what I’ll do next. Part of me wants to give the two idiots I overheard the night before a piece of my mind, another wants to head upstairs and forget they even exist, and a third part of me wants to turn round and never come back. With so many possibilities, each with its merits, I don’t know what to do for the best but as I find myself leaning towards the delivery of a few home truths I get a text from Gerry: Mate, am in the Cocks on my own and will be here all night. PS. Have a birthday pint with your name on it so come down if you can!
I glance up at my housemates still frozen in time and then back at the screen. A night out with my favourite fallen idol versus a night in spent metaphorically knocking heads together. No competition.
‘The birthday boy himself!’ cries Gerry, leaning over and throwing his good arm round me, like the last week hasn’t happened. I give him a moment to spot the bruising on my face. ‘What happened to you? You didn’t have a road/body interface while coming off a Lambretta did you?’
‘Sadly not,’ I reply. ‘Forty is what happened to me.’ I clamber up on to the stool next to him, take a sip of the drink that he’s thrust into my hands and, starting with Anne’s defection to Cancer Research, I relay the entire story of yesterday up to and including my loss of consciousness.
‘I always knew this birthday was going to be monumental,’ says Gerry, chuckling, ‘but I never imagined it would be this wild: extreme boozing, ex-friend baiting, a fist fight resulting in a knockout – stop please, you’re making me nostalgic for The Pinfolds’ first tour of the States!’
‘I know, it’s too juvenile for words and I’m thoroughly disappointed with myself.’
‘Really? Not a little bit proud? Yeah, the night might have ended with you unconscious on the floor but it beats my fortieth hands down.’
‘I could have split up Ginny and Gershwin for good and for what?’
‘I thought that’s what you wanted?’
‘Who knows what I want? I thought I wanted Lauren until she moved on; I thought I wanted Ginny until she made it clear that she didn’t want me; I was beginning to be convinced about Rosa but then I threw it all away. I don’t know what I want, Gerry, not in love, not in life. It’s like the only thing I want is the thing I can’t have because once I get it I haven’t got the faintest clue how to keep hold of it.’
Gerry raises his glass in the air and I automatically raise mine too. ‘Welcome to my world! I’d love to say that it gets easier the older you get but you know as well as anyone that I’d be lying. Speaking of which . . .’ He looks at me sheepishly. ‘I’m guessing I sort of owe you an apology.’
‘Honestly, mate, you don’t owe me anything.’
‘I think I do.’
He tells me everything. The woman Odd Owen and I met is indeed his wife, but not his first. His first was Beth, whom he had known since his teens. They fell in and out of love throughout their early twenties and unbeknown to anyone outside the band they got married in New York two weeks before ‘Newhall Lovers’ came out. Things were good for a few years but then Beth got pregnant and Gerry became distant and things came to a head when he found out that Pete McCulloch had been sleeping with Beth behind his back. That’s when the band imploded. Pete and Beth stayed together for a while but when they inevitably split up Beth started divorce proceedings and the settlement wiped out virtually all of the money Gerry had made. Determined to keep living ‘the dream’ Gerry had moved to Amsterdam to stay with friends and then Spain, which is where he met Alanza, a lawyer, and fell in love with her. When she got pregnant they made the decision to move to the UK to raise their family. With Gerry all but unemployable by then it made sense that he would look after the kids while she went out to work, but as the kids grew older and needed him less he started hanging out with his old crowd and not long after his forty-ninth birthday, Gerry Mark Two was born.
‘I guess I just wanted another shot at being young again,’ he says, by way of conclusion. ‘A last blast before I gave up the ghost like everyone else around me.’
‘And now?’
Gerry shrugs. ‘Lying in that hospital bed, thinking how different it all could have been had there been a car behind me when I came off the scooter, it just made me think about what was important, and how if I carried on down this road I was going to mess things up for good. So I’m done with it all: the girls, the going out all the time, everything. I don’t know whether I’ll be any good at this being a husband and father lark, but I’m going to give it a proper shot.’
Looking self-conscious, Gerry mutters something about that being enough girl talk for the night and offers me another drink. Feeling in the mood for a change now I’m forty I ask for a Guinness and as he waves to the barmaid I get a text, the contents of which completely stop me in my tracks.
‘What’s up?’ asks Gerry. ‘You look ill?’
I’m barely able to get the words out. ‘It’s from Lauren . . . apparently we’ve just sold the house.’
Gerry’s roar of congratulations is loud enough to make everyone in the pub stare at us but I’m barely aware of it. After all this time and all this heartache the house is finally sold.
‘I have to speak to Lauren.’ I head outside and dial her number. She replies so quickly that she must have had the phone in her hand.
‘Lauren, it’s me. Is it true? Is the house really sold?’
‘To a couple called the Masons.’ she says. ‘The estate agent showed them round for a second viewing earlier in the week and they made the first offer yesterday. I would’ve called you but with your birthday and everything I didn’t want to until I had something concrete to say.’
‘So did we get anywhere near what we wanted?’ If anything was going to mess up my plans for the future, not getting enough for the house would be it. I couldn’t afford to have any more debt hanging over me than I already had.
‘They drove a really hard bargain . . . but yes . . . it’s amazing, Matt, we’ve got enough to pay off the mortgage, for you to take out the proceeds from the sale of your apartment in Oz, and a little bonus each for the two of us!’
‘And how long until it all goes through?’
‘This is the best bit! I made it clear that the only way we’d knock money off was if they could complete quickly and they agreed to four weeks! Can you believe it? Four weeks and this whole thing is done.’
I feel weird. It doesn’t quite feel right to be so happy about something that will take Lauren and me a step closer to leading separate lives. ‘Listen,’ I say quickly, ‘I’d better go but thanks for sorting everything out with the house. I know I’ve been less than useless these past few weeks but I do really appreciate everythi
ng you’ve done.’
I tuck my phone into my jacket pocket and go back to the bar to bring Gerry up to date.
‘Why do I feel annoyed that Lauren’s so happy that the house is being sold?’
‘You’re happy aren’t you? Or was that someone else I saw a minute ago with a big grin on his face?’
‘Don’t get me wrong. I am happy. It’s just . . . I don’t see what it is Lauren’s got to be happy about. I’m happy because in just under a month I’ll be able to move out of the hovel I’m in and back to London. But what’s in it for her other than not having to be quite so involved with me?’
Gerry laughs. ‘It’s starting to make sense now: you living with her for so long even after you’d separated; you getting all weird about her online dating even though you’d been off with Ginny; and now you’re sad because once the house is sold you won’t be part of her life? Mate, if you still love her you need to tell her before it’s too late.’
London
52
Home.
As the black cab that brought me here pulls away from the edge of the pavement I scan the house for signs of change, that things have moved on. The most obvious difference is the sale board at the front of the house with a red ‘sold’ now emblazoned across it. The last time there had been a For Sale sign up Lauren and I were doing the purchasing. The day we moved in I remember taking down the board and feeling ten feet tall as I did so. This house is no longer on the market, I’d told myself as I ripped it down. This is our home.
I pick up my bags and make my way up the steps to the front door then pull out my keys, fumbling my way through the bunch until I find the right ones. Collecting the post from the floor I step inside the hallway, punch the four-digit code into the burglar alarm keypad on the wall (the date of our wedding anniversary – Lauren’s little joke so that if I ever forgot I wouldn’t be able to get into the house) bring in my stuff and close the door behind me.