Scratch

by Gillan, Danny

  What if that was it? What if she didn’t get in touch, didn’t think about what she’d said and decide she’d been in the wrong? What if I was just being a twat and she hadn’t been in the wrong at all? What if she was so pissed-off, she refused to call? Should I call her?

  I was relatively sure I’d been right to walk away the day before, but this was me I was talking about. It wouldn’t be a shock for me to have got it all pear-shaped. I was a wanker, after all.

  But then, if I was a wanker, at least under the terms outlined by her father, that meant I was oblivious to my strengths, not my weaknesses. I felt confident that being the type of guy someone would be ashamed of being seen in public with would be categorised as a weakness, not a strength, so maybe I had got it wrong. Or maybe I wasn’t a wanker, maybe I was actually an idiot.

  I was certainly confused, I knew that much.

  As the clock ticked past four and the only sounds to be heard in The Basement were Abe and Jed swearing at each other, I continued to ponder.

  I had to remember this wasn’t a normal, everyday woman; this was Paula Fraser I was talking about. This woman attracted devoted, loyal friends and admirers like the rest of us attract unpaid Council Tax demands. No matter where she moved, no matter what country she called home, she collected an army of them and kept them with her always, only ever adding to their number as she made her way through life.

  Maybe, with someone like Paula, I could be both a wanker and an embarrassment. True, this could make her a pretty shallow cow, but she was probably one of the few people on Earth who could pull that off and still be in the right.

  Now I was totally confused. Should I be the one to apologise? I still didn’t think I was in the wrong necessarily, but was starting to wonder if, despite this fact, I should make the next move if I wanted to try and salvage anything. But, if I did, would I be basically admitting to the world I was an idiot? I didn’t want to be an idiot, I wanted to be wanker.

  Jesus, this whole love business was hard. It’s possible I should have realised that before I was thirty-three but, in my defence, I’d had Paula Fraser in my brain for fourteen years. I could hardly be blamed for that, could I?

  ‘All right, Coop?’

  I turned to see Terry and Ronni at the bar. ‘Hi guys. It’s not five already is it?’

  ‘Nah, we sneaked away half an hour early,’ Ronni said.

  ‘I take it Patrick’s not in today.’

  ‘He got called upstairs at three. Looked like he was shitting himself,’ Terry said.

  ‘And he never came back down?’ Had I still worked at Combined Utilities, this would have been gossip of the highest order. As it was, it intrigued me enough that I momentarily forgot about being depressed as fuck.

  ‘Nope,’ Terry said. ‘I called up at four pretending I was looking for him and they said he’d left for the day.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘What do you think’s happened?’

  ‘Pour me a drink and I’ll tell you some lies,’ Terry said.

  ‘Love on the Rocks, Neil Diamond, nice one,’ I said. ‘What you having?’

  ‘Well spotted,’ Terry said. ‘Pint for me. Ron?’

  As Ronni ordered a blueberry Breezer, I couldn’t help but notice Terry had abbreviated her already abbreviated name even further. Not that I’m an authority on such things, but this suggested to me that their relationship was developing nicely.

  ‘So, what?’ I said once I’d sorted their drinks out.

  ‘I reckon he’s on the way out,’ Terry said. ‘There’s a rumour going around that the whole department’s performance is in the shit house, and he’s carrying the can.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ronni said with a giggle. ‘He’s buggered.’

  ‘Shame,’ I said, with no sympathy at all. ‘How come it’s all gone so wrong? When I was there we were wiping our arses with the targets.’

  ‘Dunno,’ Terry said. ‘It’s funny as fuck but, eh?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘Your life’s not going to get any easier, though.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘If you’re missing targets whoever they replace him with is going to kick your bahookies for you.’

  Terry stopped smiling. ‘Shit, I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘Maybe you should go for his job,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, Terry,’ Ronni said. ‘With his salary we could afford a flat no bother.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Well, you know,’ Terry spluttered. ‘I’ve only been promoted a couple of months, and I’m not qualified.’

  ‘You’ve got the experience in the department,’ I said. ‘I’m sure they’d put you through ArseholeCollege on day release.’

  Terry scowled. ‘Both you and the floor back there look quite clean. It’d be a shame if you were suddenly drenched in lager.’

  I raised my hands in surrender. ‘I’m just saying. You’re next in line.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ronni said. ‘You’re Deputy Department Head.’ Ah, that’s what my job title was at CU. I could never remember, for some reason.

  ‘Anyway, what’s this about you two getting a flat?’ I asked, moving the subject on from one Terry clearly didn’t want to talk about to another one he clearly didn’t want to talk about.

  ‘No, we were just talking,’ Terry said, a certain tone in his voice. It may have been a tone of desperation, it may have been fear or possibly even terror; it may also have been shut the fuck up Jim before I kill you. I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘We’ve been checking on-line, but they’re all too expensive,’ Ronni said.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I said, making a point out of friendship not to smile too much at Terry’s obvious discomfort.

  ‘Where was it you used to live again?’ Ronni asked me. ‘You sold yours pretty cheaply, didn’t you?’

  Terry had no qualms about laughing at this, the bastard. ‘Yeah, so you did, Jim. What was it you got, ninety-grand? So far we haven’t seen anything with an inside toilet going for as little as that.’

  ‘Well, you know. The market moves pretty quickly.’

  ‘Plus, some people are idiots and take the first offer they get,’ Terry pointed out.

  ‘Cheers, mate.’

  ‘Aw, you never know, Terry. We might be lucky and find an idiot.’ Ronni didn’t seem to realise she’d insulted me; she was too busy being sweet.

  ‘I don’t know, Ron,’ Terry said. ‘He’s a pretty unique idiot.’

  Ronni looked at me. ‘No he’s not,’ she said. Was that a compliment? All this wanker and idiot stuff was messing my head up.

  ‘Why don’t you move into Terry’s place?’ I asked.

  ‘Are you joking? Have you seen the state it’s in? Besides, he’s only renting. We want to buy.’

  I nodded. ‘More permanent that way.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Ronni said as Terry wilted.

  When Ronni went to the ladies a few minutes later I caught Terry’s eye. ‘Are you sure about this? It’s awful quick.’

  ‘Look who’s talking. At least we’re not naming our babies.’

  ‘Yeah well, that might have been a bit premature after all.’

  ‘I thought you sounded morbid on the phone yesterday. What’s happened?’

  ‘I think I might have chucked Paula by mistake.’

  ‘What? What did you do?’ Terry leaned forward over the bar.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘We had a wee fight in The Brooklyn, then I sort of walked out on her.’

  ‘Dramatically?’

  ‘Fairly,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if I’m meant to phone her or what.’

  ‘What was the fight about?’

  ‘She cracked up because we ran into Kate,’ I nodded towards the closed office door. ‘Then she basically said she was ashamed to be seen with me.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Terry said, eyes wide.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No, I’m pretty sure that’s what she said. Now I don’t know what to do. What if I�
��ve fucked it up for good?’

  ‘I don’t exactly know her well, or even at all come to think of it,’ Terry said. ‘But she doesn’t seem like the type who would say that, or at least not when she’s telling you she wants to get together. I mean, I can easily imagine her actually being ashamed of you, but not kidding on she wanted to be your bird at the same time. That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It doesn’t, does it?’ I said. ‘That’s why I don’t know what to do. She definitely has a real problem with people finding out about us.’

  ‘I thought that was only till she sorted out the Germany situation.’

  ‘So did I, but it feels like it’s more than that now. She was so angry at Kate. I mean, she’s only a daft wee lassie, but Paula was raging.’

  ‘You need to talk to her,’ Terry said.

  ‘Even after she said that? There’s pride involved here.’

  ‘Jim, you live with your parents and earn less money than you did ten years ago, you don’t have any pride. Besides, fuck pride. This is too important to play mind games.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘I know it wouldn’t stop me calling Ron if we had a barney, no matter whose fault it was.’

  ‘You really like her, don’t you?’

  He blushed. ‘What, you’re the only one allowed to fall in love?’

  ‘You soppy big poof.’

  ‘I thought we’d cleared up that little misunderstanding,’ Terry said.

  ‘Well you are calling her a man’s name, so maybe there’s something in it after all.’

  ‘Aye, away and fuck yourself. I’m serious, though; you should phone Paula and get it sorted.’

  ‘Get what sorted?’ Ronni asked, appearing beside Terry.

  ‘Jim accidentally split-up with Paula.’

  ‘What?’ Ronni sounded horrified and glared at me. ‘You are an idiot,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, you might be right,’ I agreed.

  ***

  Terry explained to Ronni how big an idiot I was over another drink, then they left to go virtual flat hunting over at Terry’s. They invited me to join them when I finished work. I said I might, depending.

  Sammy appeared shortly after five.

  ‘You are a wanker, Jim Cooper!’ He stood at the bar, staring at me like he wanted to grind my pathetic life into the ground under the heel of his Italian leather shoe.

  ‘You’ve spoken to Paula, then?’ I said.

  ‘Spoken to her? Why do you think I’m late? Andrea and I have been getting cried at by her since yesterday. She had to stay at mine last night because she was too upset to face her parents. How could you get up and leave her like that? The poor soul’s got enough on her plate without you being an immature wee prick.’

  ‘But,’ I said weakly. I didn’t have a follow up, so said ‘but’, again.

  ‘Don’t you but me, young man,’ Sammy said. ‘And yes, I’m aware there may have been quite a funny gay joke there, but this isn’t the time. What were you thinking?’

  ‘Sam, she said being with me made her look bad.’

  ‘Oh, you stupid little fuck-hole. She said being caught with you could look bad.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’ I’d just got his ‘but me’ comment, and smiled despite myself, though I think I managed to hide it under a cough.

  ‘Grow up, Jim,’ Sammy said. ‘Do you have any clue what she’s dealing with? Not only is her marriage in tatters, but the business she tried to build, and all the money her parents and everyone else lent her is gone. Don’t you know how bad that makes her feel? And yet, despite all that she was willing to open herself up to you, and all she asked was that you were discreet until she could at least deal with the one thing she still had some control over, her marriage. She’s not ashamed of you, you little idiot, she’s ashamed of herself. So what do you do? Get up and walk out on her when she’s at her most vulnerable. Christ, she had to phone Andrea to take money in to pay for your lunch. She only had enough to go halfers with you, you inconsiderate wee shite.’

  Sammy’s emotive, high volume rant had the desired effect and I felt terrible. I felt worse when I noticed Abe and Jed standing behind him, mouths hitting the floor. I then had a horrible premonition, and turned to see Kate standing in the office doorway, her mouth not so much hitting the floor as part-way to Australia.

  ‘Eh,’ I said (obviously). Sammy was bad enough, but at least he was involved. Trying to explain myself in front of the other three was going to be a nightmare.

  We all stood there looking at each other, a classic Mexican stand-off, but without the guns. Then the pub door creaked and we all spun round to watch Lucy walk through. She stopped when she saw us peering at her and slowly pulled her earphones out.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Why are you all staring at me?’

  Ever the professional, Sammy broke first. ‘Hi, gorgeous,’ he said. ‘Sorry, we were just shouting at Jim. Or rather I was and they were all watching.’

  Lucy thought for a moment, then shrugged and headed towards us. ‘Fair enough,’ she said, apparently satisfied. She brushed past Kate and went through to the office.

  Sammy returned his attention to me. ‘Jim, I’m officially letting you leave early.’ I looked at my watch, it was quarter-to-six. ‘On condition you start acting more mature than the cheese I had on my toast this morning, understood?’

  I nodded humbly, and went into the office to get my stuff. ‘What’s going on?’ Lucy asked, hanging her denim jacket in the lone, door-less locker. ‘Are you in trouble?’

  I picked up my own crumpled, black-nylon bomber from the plastic chair I’d thrown it at that morning. ‘Not in a work sense,’ I said. I left it at that, and left.

  Sammy was standing at the bar, looking at me in what I felt was an overly judgemental way. Kate was still rooted to the spot outside the office, a relieved look on her face suggesting she was glad Sammy had shouted at me rather than her.

  Abe and Jed both sniggered as I rushed past them on my way out.

  I pulled up Paula’s number on my mobile’s address book as I climbed the stairs, and hit green when I reached the top.

  It rang, then it rang, and then it rang again. It rang so loudly, so ominously, in my ear that I almost thought I could hear it ringing in the real world, too. Shit, I thought. She doesn’t even want to answer me.

  I was mentally trying to compose a mature, positive, please love me again voice-mail message when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  ‘Jesus Christ Almighty!’ I reached a height of about six-inches before I landed again and turned.

  ‘No, it’s just me,’ Paula said.

  I didn’t even manage an eh.

  ‘You owe me a meal,’ she said.

  ***

  ‘I have totally lost track of whether I’m a wanker or an idiot,’ I said once we’d ordered.

  ‘You’re exhibiting symptoms of both,’ Paula said.

  Although neither of us had said anything the thought of an awkward bus or taxi journey had been too horrible to contemplate and we headed silently across the road from The Basement to Bashir’s, a decent enough Indian restaurant.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you’d borrowed money from your mum and dad,’ I said.

  ‘And Andrea, and Sammy, and lots of other people.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be,’ Paula said. ‘You didn’t know. Funnily enough it’s not something I particularly like talking about.’

  ‘I understand, but I wish you’d told me.’

  ‘I probably should have. I would have eventually.’

  ‘If this is going to work we need to be honest about stuff,’ I said. At least I think it was me. ‘No stupid mind games, no holding the hard bits back. I will happily show you an actual wart I happen to have about my person.’

  Paula looked suddenly scared.

  ‘My foot,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s on my foot.’

  ‘More of a verruca, then.’

  ‘I suppose,’ I said. ‘You know w
hat I mean though.’

  ‘You’re right.’ She sighed (she did that a lot, I’d noticed). ‘But … all that stuff, about money, the school, and Ingo. It’s …’

  ‘What?’ I could see she was struggling with how to word something.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

  I wasn’t sure how to take that, and fell back on, ‘eh?’

  ‘Sorry, that sounded terrible. I just mean I need to sort it out myself, and till I figure out how I’m going to do that it doesn’t feel right talking about it, to you.’

  Nope, still not sure. ‘All I want to do is help you through it. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?’ I had been single for a while, but I was fairly certain ‘talking through problems’ was still in the good boyfriend’s handbook.

  ‘I know you want to help, and I appreciate it, honest. But, every time you mention Ingo, or anything else about Germany, I sort of freeze. You weren’t in my life through any of that, Jim. It’s been a huge chunk of my life that you had nothing to do with, and it isn’t finished yet. I know you can’t wait for it all to be done and dusted so we can move on, but it isn’t that simple.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said, not by any means certain that I did.

  ‘You don’t, Jim. I’m sorry, but you don’t. I might accept it, but I’m sad my marriage didn’t work; I’m pissed-off my business failed; I’m utterly fecking miserable about having to move back to Scotland. My life was supposed to be in Germany, not here, and it does my head in sometimes that I’m back.’

  ‘If it helps, you’re making me pretty miserable now, too.’ Of the three things she wasn’t happy about, I could understand the business one. The other two were a little more troubling.

  ‘See?’ Paula said. ‘That’s why we can’t talk about it. Of course you don’t want to hear it, why would you? You shouldn’t have to hear this. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true, though. You want me to be honest? Well this is it. I love you, but right now I can’t pretend to be happy, because I’m not.’

  I was determined not to say eh again. After a moment, I accepted I had to say something else instead. ‘Is what’s happened with us making it harder?’ That was actually fairly valid and insightful, and I almost congratulated myself, before remembering you should never ask a question unless you’re sure you want to know the answer.