Rubbish Boyfriends

by Jessie Jones

  I was moaning about it to Suzie one night when I went round for a visit.

  ‘How long has she been back?’ she asked.

  ‘It feels like two years, but it’s only been two weeks! I swear, Max had better get a move on and wrap things up over there or he might find her dead when he gets home.’

  ‘You’ll get through it, Dayna. Why don’t you give yourself a break and hang out a bit more at your boyfriend’s place? Alfie, isn’t it?’

  ‘Archie,’ I told her, feeling myself brighten up instantly. I couldn’t believe how loved-up I was feeling. Though I’d been spending a lot of time catching up with Emily over the previous fortnight, I’d still managed to get in plenty of Archie time. I was beginning to think he felt the same about me as I did about him.

  ‘When are we going to meet him?’ Suzie asked. ‘Your dad’s itching. He still sees him as the stranger who was kissing his baby girl at his wedding. I think you need to put him out of his misery, show him what a nice boy you’ve nabbed yourself.’

  ‘I’ll bring him round soon enough,’ I said. ‘Where is Dad, by the way?’

  I looked at my watch. I had to be up early for work the next day and I couldn’t hang around forever.

  ‘Good question,’ she said, frowning slightly.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  I remembered how on edge Dad had been before they went on their honeymoon. Although I hadn’t seen that much of him since he’d got home, he’d seemed happier and I’d blithely assumed that everything was back to normal. But now Suzie had me worried.

  ‘No, nothing’s wrong,’ she told me. ‘You know your dad. He likes to get out and about. But he’s a big boy. He doesn’t have to let me know where he is twenty- four-seven.’

  ‘Come on, Suzie, don’t give me that,’ I said. ‘I know what my dad’s like. But he can’t be living his life like a bachelor any more. If he’s done anything to –’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘Everything’s fine. Your dad’s been as good as gold.’

  ‘He’d better have been otherwise I’ll kill him.’ I couldn’t quite believe I was leaping to Suzie’s defence like that, but there it was. ‘Something’s up, Suzie,’ I said. ‘I can tell.’

  She sighed heavily. ‘If I’m honest, your dad has been a bit … different since our wedding. A bit irritable. You saw it for yourself that day we were leaving. He tells me he’s going out for a quick drink with the lads, then he doesn’t get home till the early hours. I know for a fact he’s at the casino because I know one of the waitresses there. I don’t mind. Like I said, he’s a big boy. And before we got hitched, we used to do that sort of thing all the time. But that’s the point. We used to do it together.’

  ‘Have you talked to him about it?’

  ‘I’ve tried, but he won’t open up.’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t said anything to me,’ I told her. I wanted to reassure her that I wasn’t privy to anything she didn’t know about. And, much as I loved my dad, I was annoyed with him. His behaviour sounded just like the old, pre-Suzie Dad. Fine for a single man, but he’d given up his right to selfish behaviour. And now that I thought about it, how dare he lecture me on acting responsibly?

  ‘Has he told you about his winnings?’ Suzie asked quietly.

  I shook my head and gulped, sensing what was coming.

  ‘He lost half of it in one night on the tables.’

  ‘Half of it?’ I gasped. Even after what he’d already spent and given to me, that was still well over fifty grand.

  ‘It gets worse, I’m afraid,’ she continued. ‘He went back the next night with the other half, determined to win it back, and … Well, you can guess the rest.’

  I felt the colour drain from my face.

  We sat quietly for a while. Her looking pensive. Me feeling terrible. When she’d first appeared in our lives, I was convinced she was a gold-digger. Well, even if she had been, she would never have had a chance to clean him out. He’d proved perfectly capable of doing that all by himself.

  ‘Still, it’s only money, eh?’ Suzie said at last. ‘And as he keeps saying himself, he’s no worse off now than he was before he won it. Look, I’m sorry, Dayna. I really shouldn’t have bothered you with all this. Men are funny creatures at the best of times. He’s probably just getting his seven-year itch out of the way early or something.’ She laughed, but only with her mouth. Her eyes weren’t smiling at all.

  The next morning, I didn’t wake up in the best of moods, and once I got to work, things only got worse. I’d been getting fed up with the job for a while, but that day it was as if everything was conspiring against me.

  It started with the waxing machine. I swear I checked the temperature dial twice. The thermostat must have been acting up, though, because when I set about my first client, it was almost hot enough to cook her lower leg. I felt bad for her, but she so overreacted. Instead of going, ‘Ouch, that’s a bit hot,’ she leapt off the bed and screamed the roof off. And with all that racket, it was no surprise that the two girls waiting outside suddenly remembered previous appointments and legged it.

  It didn’t end there. A woman with streaky orange hands came in to complain about her streaky orange hands. I’d done a spray job on her the day before and, yes, I’d specifically told her to avoid washing for twelve hours because the water might affect the colour.

  ‘You told me no such thing,’ she protested when I reminded her. ‘Anyway, how can you expect people not to wash?’ she went on, taking off her shoes to show me her streaky orange feet.

  I was positive I’d told her and I was sure I’d also given her the leaflet that spelt out the no-washing rule in big black letters. I always went through the aftercare routine with clients, making a joke of it so that they didn’t think I was advocating dirtiness … Or maybe, just maybe, I’d forgotten to tell her. My concentration had been wavering lately. I just didn’t know.

  ‘John Lewis is only two tube stops away. The glove department is on the ground floor,’ I offered. ‘Failing that you could always get work as the new face of Tango. Sorry, the hands and feet of Tango.’ No, I didn’t say any of that, but I wished I had as I watched her storm out.

  ‘I’m in PR, you know. The Daily Mail would love this,’ was her parting shot.

  Vivien, the manageress, wasn’t impressed, and I had my first NaturElle bollocking. Environmentally friendly it wasn’t.

  Things got worse after lunch when the world’s most depressed secretary plonked herself on my couch. It was like performing a facial on a talking suicide note. I know how you feel, I wanted to tell her. I consoled myself with the thought of an evening with Archie. Or at least I did until he phoned to say there was another council meeting that night. I told him not to worry, my hair needed a wash anyway. If I had to sit at home like a sad, dateless loser, I might as well do it with clean, glossy hair.

  Can you tell I was feeling sorry for myself?

  I went back to the flat hoping for comfort from Emily. I found her on the living-room floor, blowing kisses down the phone to you-know-who. Piles of her clothes and underwear were spread across the sofa and empty drink cans and sweet-wrappers were arrayed around her on the carpet. I turned round and headed straight back out of the door. She didn’t even notice.

  I stood on the landing taking deep breaths, trying to calm down. OK, so I’d had a horrible day, but that was no reason to take it out on my best friend in the whole wide world. But as I thought about it, it dawned on me that her privileged position of best friend in the whole wide world made her exactly the person to take it out on.

  I was about to storm back in and give her hell when Kirsty and Ruby emerged from their flat.

  ‘What’s up, Dayna?’ Kirsty asked. ‘Lost your key or something?’

  ‘No, just catching my breath before I go in,’ I said, attempting a smile. ‘By the way, did you know Emily’s back?’

  ‘Hard to miss her,’ she laughed. ‘She comes and goes a lot that girl. Doesn’t l
ike closing the door quietly either, does she?’

  ‘Sorry. Not long now. Max is coming back soon to rescue us.’

  She waved her hand like it was no big deal. So laid-back, that one, I thought. How nice of her not to cause a fuss. I couldn’t have wished for a better neighbour. How could I have felt so awkward about her? Because, God, if you’re going to have drunken, experimental girl sex, they don’t come any better than Kirsty. Not that we’d definitely had drunken girl sex. I couldn’t remember, could I? Whatever, I was just glad things were cool between us now.

  ‘We’re going to the Raglan,’ she said as they made for the stairs. ‘Wanna come?’

  My knee-jerk reaction was to say no, but then I thought about it for a second. Out there was a pub with nice nooks and crannies and a soothingly friendly atmosphere, whereas in there was a flat full of someone else’s crap and a someone else to go with it.

  ‘Love to,’ I said, running after them.

  We found a table in the corner easily enough. Kirsty and I sat down while Ruby got the first round in.

  ‘Thanks for asking me along, Kirsty,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t face another night of Emily and her mess. I’m going to have to say something to her.’

  ‘Hey, you’re not going to argue and never speak to her again, are you? Because if you are, don’t come round my place to get trashed, dump your woes and use it as a pretext to have your wicked way with me again. I’m wise to you now, missy.’

  Even in the pub’s low light she could see me blush. She laughed at my discomfort and said, ‘Relax, I’m only joking. So, what are you going to say to her?’

  ‘Probably nothing. She’s just a bit messy, no big deal. Anyway, she’s not sticking around for long.’ I said this as casually as I could manage. If Kirsty was going to do laid-back, then so would I. The trouble was that Kirsty didn’t just do laid-back, she actually was – she’d been born with the laid-back gene. Unlike me, who’d clearly inherited the moody, uptight and touchy gene from my father.

  I’d also been born with his inability to hide his feelings. That much was proved when Ruby put my drink down in front of me and asked, ‘What’s up? You look as if you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.’

  ‘Dayna’s having trouble with her trampy flatmate,’ Kirsty explained.

  ‘She’s temporary, isn’t she?’ Ruby said. ‘They’re the worst. They don’t feel they have to impress you with their domesticity because they’re not sticking around for long. She must be driving you mad.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ I protested vainly. ‘I love having Emily back. I’d just forgotten that she can be a bit, you know, untidy.’ Suddenly I was feeling really bad for slagging off my best mate and I was desperate to change the subject. ‘Anyway, it’s nice to be out with you two,’ I said. ‘I love being with lesbians. They’re so laid-back.’

  Aaaarrrggh! Where the hell had that come from? Who was in control of my voice box that night, I wondered, because it certainly wasn’t me?

  ‘Kirsty said you were a bit quirky,’ Ruby said with a smile. ‘What is it you do again?’

  ‘I’m a beauty therapist,’ I told her as I fanned my red face with a beer mat. ‘But I’m not sure for how much longer. I’m not enjoying it at the moment.’

  ‘I know how you feel. I am hating my job,’ Ruby said.

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a care worker, you know, special-needs kids,’ she replied.

  ‘Ruby’s got the boss from hell and the pay stinks,’ Kirsty explained, ‘but she’s been offered a fantastic new job.’

  ‘That’s brilliant,’ I told her. ‘Go for it.’

  ‘Yeah, I would. It’s the best Down Syndrome centre in the UK. But it’s in Cheshire. No disrespect to Cheshire, but Kirsty isn’t there, is she?’

  ‘Sure as hell ain’t,’ Kirsty confirmed.

  ‘What do you do when your dream job and your dream lover clash?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘You choose, honey, you choose,’ Kirsty told her, putting her hand firmly on her thigh.

  ‘Oh, I think I’ve chosen,’ Ruby said. And to leave me in no doubt as to which way she’d gone, she turned to face Kirsty and kissed her. Not a light peck on the cheek, but a full-on mouth-to-mouth snoggy thing. With tongues, by the looks of it.

  Blimey.

  I’d never been in a pub with two girls doing that before.

  I quickly remembered it was rude to stare so I bent over and made out I was tying the laces on my trainers. As soon as I was down there I was reminded that actually, I was wearing zip-up boots, so I came back up and noticed that the kissing had got slurpier. What to do, where to look? For something to do, I fumbled in my bag for nothing in particular. I couldn’t have felt more uncomfortable if it was me Kirsty was kissing … Which she had been not so long ago, but at least that had been in the privacy of her flat, and besides, I wasn’t stressing about that any more, was I?

  It was obvious to anyone watching with their mouth hanging open (i.e. me) that these two girls were in love and they didn’t give a stuff who knew it. I was sure that the whole pub must be staring, but a quick scan proved me utterly wrong. Not one single person was looking our way. I was stunned. I must have led a very sheltered life because girl-girl kissing was clearly something that the whole world was used to and, seemingly, bored with. God, I needed to get out more.

  I made a decision. I was going to tell Archie that I wanted to go to fashionable clubs and exotic bars. I was going to hang out in Soho and surround myself with screaming queens and snogging lesbians and people with studded faces and multicoloured hair. And he’d love me for my sense of adventure and we could talk about it right now because there he was walking into the pub.

  Er, why was Archie walking into the pub? Wasn’t he meant to be at a council meeting? He walked up to the bar followed by a group of six or seven other guys. A couple of them had suits and ties on, but the others were dressed more casually. Football hooligan casual, that is – number-one cuts, Hackett shirts and DMs. There was something a bit thuggish about them. I supposed they could have been in the skip business. It wasn’t a job for softies, after all.

  But why had he lied to me? OK, he wasn’t walking in with a blonde bombshell on his arm, but a lie is a lie. Maybe there was an innocent explanation. Or maybe he was a plain old lying bastard. I decided my best tactic would be to duck down and watch discreetly from my corner table, see if I could figure out what was going on.

  ‘Archie, over here!’ I called out before I could stop myself.

  I don’t think he could have looked more startled if he had had a blonde on his arm. He froze for a moment, then pulled himself together, forced a smile onto his face and made his way over.

  ‘This is a nice surprise,’ he said, and I really wanted to believe he meant it.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, trying to make the question sound casual. ‘I thought you were at a meeting.’

  ‘I am,’ he replied, taking a seat next to me. ‘See those blokes in suits? Councillors. They were trying to tie us up in red tape down at the town hall. Me and a couple of the others figured we could do with a change of environment. I reckon after a couple of pints they’ll cut us the slack we need.’

  Sounds plausible enough, I thought as I watched the barman herd the men through a door that led upstairs.

  ‘Where are they going?’ I asked, trying but failing to keep the edge of suspicion out of my voice.

  ‘We don’t want to discuss confidential waste-disposal matters with the likes of you listening in, do we?’ he joked. ‘No, I phoned ahead and asked the landlord to let us use one of his private rooms. Anyway, I thought you were staying in tonight?’

  ‘I was,’ I told him, ‘but Kirsty asked me out for a drink.’

  ‘Kirsty?’

  ‘You know, she lives in the flat opposite mine.’

  I turned towards her, ready to introduce him. Thankfully she and Ruby had finished kissing, but they were still totally wrapped up in each other and Ruby�
��s lipstick was smeared halfway across her cheek.

  ‘Let me introd––’ I stopped because Archie had stood up rather suddenly, a look I couldn’t read on his face.

  ‘Sorry,’ he cut in, not looking very sorry at all. ‘I’d better be going otherwise they’ll be finishing up without me.’ He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I’ll call you. Tomorrow.’ And he was gone, hurrying after his mates.

  What was bothering him? Something clearly was. Had he been lying? Maybe he had another woman stashed upstairs. Hell, maybe there were several women up there and this was the secret local orgy rendezvous. I didn’t have a clue and my confusion must have been written all over my face because Kirsty broke away from Ruby and brushed my arm. ‘Don’t worry about it, honey,’ she said. ‘We get that a lot.’

  ‘Get what a lot?’ I asked, none the wiser.

  ‘Homophobes, bigots, whatever you want to call them. There’s still plenty of them about.’

  ‘Oh no, Archie’s no bigot. He’s a lovely bloke. He was just in a rush. He’s having a meeting with those councillors who just came in,’ I explained, trying to make him sound terribly important and MP-ish and not at all like a man who was about to rush upstairs and have sleazy sex with multiple partners.

  Kirsty and Ruby shook their heads at me and laughed. What was so funny? Maybe they knew who he was. That he was the actual Archie of Archie’s Skips.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ I asked.

  ‘You reckon those guys are from the council?’ Ruby said.

  ‘Yes … Why shouldn’t they be?’