‘I don’t know,’ Paula said. ‘It sounded like it, but he did agree the last year hasn’t been good.’
I sympathised with Ingo, I truly did. I’d been chucked by Paula myself and knew how crappy it was. But Ingo wasn’t my priority. ‘And how are you?’
‘I feel like a complete cow.’
‘But you know you’re not, don’t you? You only did what you had to. Staying together when it’s not right doesn’t help anyone.’
‘I know,’ she said, eyes on the table. ‘Still feel like a cow.’
‘Look, I know you didn’t only do it for me, but thank you.’ I reached for her hand. She let me take it. ‘I’m sure it doesn’t help, but you’ve made my day.’
She let out a weak laugh. ‘Just your day?’
‘My week, my year, my life,’ I said.
‘You’re right, it doesn’t help much, but maybe a little.’
‘Ingo will be okay eventually. He needs to get on with his life the same as you.’
‘I know. He was due to start work in a few weeks; I had to tell him before he started thinking about booking flights or anything. Plus, he needs to give the School notice that he isn’t taking the job.’
‘So he’s definitely not coming over?’ I couldn’t hide my relief. One of my many paranoid nightmare scenarios was that Ingo might still take the job and end up hanging around Glasgow trying to win Paula back. Recent exes are always bad news, but an ex in Germany was a hell of a lot better than one in Govanhill.
‘Don’t be a twat, Jim. Why would he?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Just checking.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m all yours. Or should I say, you’re stuck with me.’
‘Fine by me,’ I said.
‘We’ll see if you’re still saying that after a few months listening to me moaning at you all day. Remember, you only have to put up with me for a few hours at a time just now.’ Her smile was more solid now and she seemed to be brightening a little.
‘Moan away, my dear,’ I said. ‘I’ll just stop listening when it gets too much. I believe that’s why iPods were invented, after all.’
‘You try it and I’ll break your legs,’ Paula said, laughing. ‘When I moan I want a bloody audience.’
‘Fair enough. So, have you said anything to your mum and dad?’
‘About us?’ She looked scared.
‘No, about Ingo.’
‘Oh, right. Yeah, I told them after I spoke to him.’
‘How were they?’
‘Same as always, supportive and lovely. My mum was upset for a while, but my dad didn’t seem a bit surprised.’
‘I get the feeling there’s very little could surprise your dad, except maybe Bruce Lee turning up alive and well working in Tesco.’
‘True,’ Paula said. ‘You were right; they’re brilliant and I should have told them ages ago. In fact, I should have told Ingo ages ago, too. All that stuff about his grandad was just an excuse for me being a shite-bag.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through all this, it hasn’t been fair on you. Thanks for putting up with me.’
‘Are you joking? I get to spend my life with you, I’d have put up with anything short of you getting a sex change and marrying Sammy.’
She laughed. ‘He actually suggested something along those lines once, but it was a long time ago and he was very drunk. He can go a bit hetero when he’s pished. I caught him snogging Andrea one night.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah. They both denied it the next day, but I definitely saw them.’
‘Hah! Am I allowed to slag him for it?’
‘Go for it. He’ll pretend not to know what you’re talking about, but I bet you he blushes.’
‘Nice one. It’s always good to have some ammo on the boss.’
‘Well, you’ve got some on Kate, too, after today.’
‘Now now. I told her and I’ll tell you. I’m not a bastard.’
‘Looks like she and I have something in common, then. We’re both lucky to have you.’
This took me by surprise, and I think I went purple. ‘Eh.’
‘Aw, he’s all embarrassed.’ Paula was delighted. ‘Can Jimmy not take a compliment? Is he a wee bit shy?’
‘Fuck off,’ I said. ‘It’s your round.’
Paula was still laughing when she returned from the bar. She had brought along a couple of frozen vodkas to balance out the beers.
‘Congratulations, I’m impressed,’ she said when the vodka had been disposed of in the usual manner.
‘With what? It’s only vodka.’
‘Not that. I’m impressed you haven’t brought up the subject of sex.’
‘I didn’t think it was appropriate,’ I said. ‘Yet,’ I added.
‘Today isn’t the day,’ Paula confirmed. ‘But thanks for realising that, a lot of guys wouldn’t have. More proof, as if it was needed, that you are a wanker after all.’
‘I am right in looking on wanker as basically a compliment now?’
‘In your case, yes,’ Paula said. ‘You’re a nicer guy than you give yourself credit for, Jim. I don’t even just mean the way you’ve put up with me and all my crap. Look how good you were with Kate today; if that had been me I’d have laughed my arse off at her and ran to Sammy in a minute.’
‘Aye, but you have to remember you’re a complete cow, so it isn’t a fair comparison.’
‘This is true,’ she agreed. ‘It wouldn’t do you any harm to let Sammy see how good you are at all that stuff, though.’
‘Now you’re just trying to change the subject. I believe we were talking about not talking about sex.’
‘And we still are, or aren’t. I’m confused.’
‘You’re Irish, it’s only natural.’
‘Careful! The only thing I hate more than racists are all those bloody foreigners.’
‘Boom boom,’ I said.
‘So we’re still not talking about sex,’ Paula said. ‘And, in light of that, the fact that I’m choosing to inform you my mum and dad are going to visit the aunties in the homeland next weekend and I’ve got an empty is mentioned purely in passing.’
Chapter 24
It’s normal for teenagers to panic about sex (I know I did). It might even be normal for the elderly, I don’t know yet. But I couldn’t help feeling it was a bit daft for me, a 33 year-old man of the world (or at least the south side), to be so nervous.
I’ve never been flexible enough to blow my own trumpet, but I wasn’t a novice. My inability to commit to any of my previous relationships meant I’d amassed more, or at least more varied, experience than many (okay, some) guys my age. None of that mattered when I thought about being with Paula again, though.
As the days crawled towards the weekend when her parents went to Ireland and Paula and I hopefully went somewhere much nicer, I became increasingly jittery.
We continued to meet for lunch and the odd evening and, with the spectre of Ingo dissolving and pretty much everyone except our parents knowing we were together, we were able to relax and simply enjoy spending time with one another. Our conversations lost those early, awkward bits and we started to make some proper plans. Whenever the upcoming ‘consummation’ was mentioned though, I became a gibbering wreck again.
‘How about the west end?’ Paula asked. We were in The Brooklyn and Marita had just brought us our lasagnes.
‘It’s a bit expensive,’ I said. ‘You’d get the same size for half the rent on the south side.’
‘For someone who says he doesn’t get on with his parents you’re awful keen to stay close to them.’
‘I don’t not get on with them; we just have bugger-all to say to each other.’
‘Because you’ve never tried.’ Paula shovelled a forkful of pasta and aubergine into her mouth.
‘It’s not that easy.’
‘Actually it is, you just open your mouth and let words come out. You talk some amount of pish when you’re with me; just do the same with them.’
‘Oh cheers,’ I said. ‘I talk pish, do I?’
‘We all do; it’s called conversation.’
‘I suppose. But we’ve got an understanding in my house. Thirty-odd years’ experience has taught us it’s safer just to say hello then stay quiet; thus by-passing our natural impulse to argue like fuck all the time.’
Paula looked at me with a patronising amount of sympathy. ‘That’s quite sad, you do know that.’
‘Hey, it works for us,’ I said. ‘Anyway, we were talking about flats.’
‘True.’ Paula shuffled through the various rental lists we had collected from estate agents. It was too early to actually start viewing, but we wanted to get a feel for what was available. We hadn’t even discussed the possibility of buying, what with her being on the verge of bankruptcy and my salary being so low that any mortgage adviser worth his salt would have had me arrested for loitering if I went anywhere near their office. ‘There’s a two bedroom in Netherlee that looks all right,’ Paula said.
‘Why do we need two bedrooms?’
‘It would save us having to move if, you know, our situation develops.’
I grinned. A comment like that would have had me booking a flight to Venezuela if it had come from anyone else. With Paula, the idea of kids wasn’t even remotely scary (other than the financial implications, obviously). ‘Taylor and Max?’ I said.
‘I’m going off Max,’ Paula said. ‘How do you feel about Sam?’
‘I’m sure Sammy would be delighted.’
‘Well we can’t name him after my dad; the poor kid would be confused.’
I laughed. ‘I never did figure out what all that Simon/Joe stuff was about.’
‘He does it to mess with people. His middle name’s Joseph. He reckons that if you keep people off guard by changing the parameters all the time they’re more likely to be honest by accident. It’s a psychologist thing.’
That sounded like something the old bastard would do. ‘So why does your mum call him Joe?’
Paula shrugged. ‘She went to school with a boy called Simon who was a prick, apparently.’
‘Your parents are weird,’ I said.
‘Yes, they are,’ she said proudly. ‘But I like them.’
I did, too. ‘I’m jealous.’
‘That’s a terrible thing to say. Your mum and dad are lovely; they were always so good to me.’
‘That’s because they don’t think you’re a sad and worrying waste of oxygen.’
‘Well isn’t that a big mountain of pathetic, self-pitying bollocks. You need to get past that nonsense, Jim. You sound like the bad sort of wanker when you say stuff like that.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll shoot up in their estimation as soon as they find out I’ve managed to get you back.’
‘It won’t be long.’
‘I know.’
We had agreed to tell both sets of parents at the same time, and figured another month or so should be about right. Paula had admitted that, when she did finally open up about us, she would end up telling Simon and Louise the whole story anyway. She just wanted them to get used to the idea of her not being with Ingo first. Simon was fine, but Louise was struggling a little with the idea of a failed marriage in the family (bloody Catholic guilt).
‘So,’ Paula said, seeming to recognise a change of subject was required (or at least a change back). ‘Taylor and Sam, are we agreed?’
I nodded. ‘As long as they get your looks, your brains, your personality and your common sense we can call them anything you like.’
‘Back to being the good kind of wanker,’ Paula said with a smile.
‘It’s what I do best, apparently.’
‘We’ll find out if that’s true on Friday night,’ she said, arching her eyebrows. ‘I’m hoping you’re good at a few other things, too.’
And the gibbering wreck returned. ‘Hah, pfff, eh, here’s hoping.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle,’ Paula said.
‘You might have to be.’
***
I may be giving a false impression of Paula’s state of mind. For every conversation we had about renting flats and naming children, we also had less pleasant ones about how guilty she still felt about Ingo and the way things in Germany had turned out.
Although these were difficult things for me to hear, I don’t think I could have loved her as much as I did had she been able to shrug them off with ease.
‘Ingo phoned this morning,’ she said to me in The Basement on the Tuesday before her parents went to Ireland. She came in with Sammy, having stayed over at his place the previous night. Sam was in the office with Kate, no doubt discovering that her abilities as a stock-taker and calculator of profit-margins had mysteriously improved.
‘How was he?’ I asked. The pub was fairly quiet and I had attended to what few customers we had. I had a good ten minutes before table five would be thinking about coffees.
‘Yeah, okay,’ Paula said. ‘A bit too okay, actually.’
‘How do you mean?’
She finished her coke. ‘It’s really strange. Apart from not mentioning coming here, he acts like nothing’s changed. He just talks away about Isaak, about everything that’s going on over there.’
I’ll re-emphasise at this point that these were difficult things for me to hear.
‘Are you sure he understands it’s over?’
‘Yeah,’ Paula said. ‘I think he needs a friend, more than anything. I’ve been his best pal for years. We were so busy with the school neither of us had much of a social life away from work.’
‘You didn’t have social life? I find that hard to believe.’
‘There’s a difference between having mates and seeing them. Neither of us had a day off in the last year, plus we were skint. The odd bottle of wine back at Ingo’s parents’ was as exciting as it got, and we usually ended up asleep after the first glass.’
‘I hope you won’t mind that I’m glad to hear that.’ My heart turned into a cannonball whenever I thought about Paula being with Ingo, and it helped to be reminded they hadn’t been ‘close’ for a long time.
Paula smiled. ‘No, I don’t mind. You do understand I’m going to be talking to him a fair amount, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, you’ve still got a lot to sort out, I know that.’
‘Even after that, Jim. He’s still my friend and always will be. I can’t cut him out of my life.’
Of course she couldn’t. Paula kept in touch with everyone she’d ever met (apart from me for twelve years), so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised she’d want to stay in contact with a guy she’d been married to. That didn’t mean I liked the idea, though. ‘No, of course, yeah,’ I said. ‘Until he finds someone else, anyway.’
Paula looked uncertain. ‘We’ll see. I can’t abandon him after doing all this, it would be really unfair.’
‘I know,’ I said. I was about to say more, but stopped myself.
‘What?’ Paula said.
Damn. ‘No, nothing.’
‘Jim, what?’
Oh well. ‘I was just thinking, maybe he won’t be so keen to stay in touch when you tell him about us.’ Stupid thing to say, I know. But also a legitimate one, I thought.
‘I can’t tell him, Jim,’ Paula said. She didn’t look happy about it, but she still said it (as I’d known she would).
‘Not now, I understand that.’ Might as well get it out in the open. ‘But you’ll have to, somewhere down the line.’
‘It would kill him,’ Paula said. ‘I can’t, not for a long time, anyway.’
‘When you say long?’
‘Oh come on, Jim, I don’t know. That’s not fair.’
Maybe it wasn’t, but a small part of me wouldn’t believe this was all really happening until everyone knew about it; and everyone included Ingo, unfair or not.
‘I know you can’t tell him everything, but he’ll need to find out you’ve moved on eventually.’
‘I know that, Jim.’ She a
lways used my name more when she was angry. ‘But eventually doesn’t mean soon, okay? Isaak’s on his deathbed and I’ve just told Ingo our marriage is over, which also means he’s unemployed and homeless, I think that’s enough for him to deal with, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, okay, okay,’ I said. The topic had been raised, that would have to be enough for now. ‘Sorry.’
‘Just,’ Paula began. ‘Just let me deal with it my way, okay?’
‘Okay, no bother.’
I understood Paula’s point about Ingo and Germany not having much to do with me; I also thought, though, that if she was my girlfriend (not the right word, but I hate ‘partner’), the person I was going to spend my life with, then I kind of was involved already. She seemed to think she could draw a dividing line between her recent past and our burgeoning future, but the truth was that I had been ‘seeing’ her, if only in the literal sense, for the last three months, so that line was already blurred if it existed at all. That’s the way I saw it anyway.
Sammy came out of the office, breaking the tension. ‘Can I borrow Jim for a minute, doll?’ he asked Paula.
‘As long as you don’t hurt him,’ Paula said.
‘No promises,’ Sam said. ‘Jim?’
I looked at Paula, who shrugged to say she didn’t have a clue what this was about. I shrugged back, and followed Sammy into the office.
Kate was camped behind the desk as usual, and looked up at me with a resigned smile.
‘Grab a seat,’ Sammy said. He had pulled up two grey plastic chairs next to the desk, and we took one each. Sammy lifted some of the papers spread in front of Kate. ‘Kate tells me you had a hand in this.’
He was holding the stock report I’d helped Kate with the previous week. ‘Eh.’ I looked at Kate, who nodded. ‘Maybe a bit,’ I said.
‘More than a bit, I’d say.’ Sammy raised his eyebrows at me, which was never pleasant.
‘It’s okay, Jim,’ Kate said. ‘I explained.’
That was no bloody use. What had she explained, exactly? ‘Okay,’ I said.
‘Kate has made me aware of my deficiencies as an interviewer,’ Sammy said.
Oh, she really had explained. Brave girl. ‘Okay,’ I said again.
‘And,’ Sammy went on. ‘She’s also reminded me you could do more than pour a pint when you worked here before.’
Scratch Page 25