Sunday 6th March
Mothering Sunday, and it was back home to see my ‘vacuous, petty, pretty and snobby’ mother. Whom I love dearly.
I gave her a bunch of flowers, which delighted her, even if they were the wrong colour for the time of year. How was I meant to know that there was a March colour? I’m reminded of Lucy’s comments about magenta pink.
Speaking of Lucy, that’s exactly what Mummy did, all day long. But it was Mothering Sunday so I let her practise her mothering as she laid into me about the huge mistake I was making. I let it wash over me. I mean, what could I say to placate her? Don’t worry, Mummy, on Thursday 17th February I bent Lucy over her kitchen table and made her come within thirty seconds, so it’s all going to be OK. I may have spent nine months inside her womb, but there are many topics parents and their offspring should keep to themselves.
Brother Ben also came home, which was nice, as I hadn’t seen him since Christmas. Ben is better-looking than me, younger than me, more intelligent than me and generally nicer than me, but he wears his effortless superiority with such good-natured charm that I love him almost as much as I hate him. He’s a medical student, so I asked him about the little lump in my bollock. He didn’t have a clue — he’s only done the kidney and the right leg so far.
‘Your father and I are off skiing next week,’ announced Mummy as she was clearing away the pudding.
‘But you’ve never been skiing before,’ said Brother Ben.
‘Oh no, not real skiing,’ replied Mummy. ‘I mean SKI-ing. Spending the Kids’ Inheritance. It’s all the rage these days. We’re going on a five-star safari in Tanzania.’
And parents think it’s traumatic watching their children grow up? It’s far worse the other way round.
After we’d all had enough of Mummy, Ben, Daddy and I escaped in the afternoon for the golf course — a blessedly girlfriend-/Mother-free zone. I lost seven balls and went round in 118.
Not a good day.
Monday 7th March
The lump has gone. Hallelujah — I’m not going to die.
Another nineteen days of my Lent fast, and my flawless testicle and I will be sleeping with Claire, Mel and Susie.
Tuesday 8th March
I’ve been helping out with graduate recruitment a little bit this year — that unrivalled process which puts the likes of Rupert (bald), Buddy, Leila and me together in the same office.
We finished the first round of interviews a couple of weeks ago and it was my job to send out the rejection letters. I rather liked this riposte, which came back from a student at Oxford today:
Dear Milkround Company,
I did enjoy jeopardising my degree to meet with you on multiple occasions during December, January and February. However, despite the large quantities of expensive alcohol, food and hotel rooms you forced upon me, I have decided not to extend you an offer this time.
I know this news will come as a disappointment to you, but I must stress that I have an unprecedented number of better things to do with my life. The competition was harder than ever this year. You should focus on the positives. I’m sure you will have plenty of other debt-ridden eager beavers clamouring to take you on.
I am collating some feedback on your performance, which should be with you just after it can be of any use for other applications. In the meantime, however, I think you need to work on the standard of your employees’ chit-chat at post-presentation mingles. I did enjoy meeting Buddy, and hearing his views on the excellent work–life balance that your company offers, but frankly his chat stank. Also, the impact of his message was somewhat diluted by his colleagues’ glazed eyes and the continual muttering of ‘Need sleep, need sleep’ before an HR woman (remarkably fit, I give you) rushed over to wind up the cogs in their backs.
You see, my experience with you has been remarkably like a bad relationship. I’d heard good things about you; I’d admired you from afar. Your exes sang your praises. We met and plied each other with alcohol in the hope that we would get along. We were on our most charming, courting behaviour. I only knew about your good points. True, I was two-timing you (eight-timing, to be exact), but you were the one I really wanted, the one I was holding out for. And now, just as we were on the verge of real commitment, I find myself brutally dumped. No consoling words, no regrets of what might have been, just a telephone call midway through my evening in the pub. Well, the feeling’s mutual. I was going to dump you, too. You just got in there first.
But I’d like to emphasise again how much I enjoyed meeting you. I hope you will not be put off bombarding me again with inane brochures and yo yos embossed with your delightful logo. I wish you all the best for your banal, soulless future.
Best wishes,
Nigel O. T. Bitter, Esq.
PS I was wondering what your policy would be on my reapplying next year?
Mr Bitter is definitely one to watch, in my opinion. I gave the letter to Leila and it’s now pinned up on her desk.
Wednesday 9th March
Flatmate Fred is sinking into a deeper and deeper depression. He’s bored by his data entry and doesn’t want to write his books any more. He doesn’t fancy any of the girls who like him, and he hasn’t met anyone he likes for ages.
I suggest that he gets dressed like everyone else in the morning and goes out and interacts with people while the sun is still up. He could copy Rick’s example of using offices like a dating agency. Rick stays in a job just long enough to fall for a hopelessly unsuitable colleague before moving on and beginning the cycle all over again. He’s a collegiate whore, a workplace slapper.
Talking of Rick, we have decided to repeat our boys’ night out on Friday. I’m a little apprehensive. Buddy will soon have every reason to hate me, Rick is acting oddly around me and Flatmate Fred and Jasper are flirting more outrageously than ever before. It could be interesting.
Friday 11th March
It was interesting. It was also one of the worst nights of my life.
It started off so well — economy pizza and beers on the balcony while we discussed Important Things such as politics and whether girls had ever put their fingers up our bums during sex.
Then some fool (I think it was me) suggested playing a game of ‘I have never’ to get us drunk quickly. It’s a stupid game, but it can work well when you’re in a mixed group of people who know each other well and others who don’t.
Buddy thought he’d kick off in a suitably light-hearted way: ‘I have never slept with Lucy.’ Good lad — he’d picked up on the rules quickly.
Everyone looked at me, and I guffawed and took a hearty swig out of my can. Yep, that’s right, I’ve slept with her more than a hundred times. Legend, me.
And then Rick took a little surreptitious sip of his beer.
‘Richard Fielding,’ intoned Jasper, ‘I do hope that was an “I’m thirsty” sip of your beer, and not an “Oh, yes, I too have carnal knowledge of Lucy Poett”-type sip.’
It was the latter. I am not a violent man, but the next thing I knew I had pushed Rick to the floor and was kicking twenty hues of crap out of him. It was the first time in my life that I had hit anyone. I think it probably hurt me more than it hurt Rick.
Buddy, who is even bigger than me, hauled me off and I strained like a Rottweiler on a leash, yapping a torrent of invective at Rick.
Girls in a similar situation would want to know why. How could they hurt someone who was a friend? Were there emotions involved? But all I wanted were the facts. All of them — when, how, and how many times?
But facts don’t help in a situation like this. You want to know them all, but each little detail hurts a little bit more than the one before. There are a thousand questions, but each answer twists the knife a little deeper.
Yet there was one ‘why’ I did want to know. Why had he lied to me so successfully when I went round to his flat to confront him, and then confessed in this extraordinary way during a stupid drinking game six weeks later?
‘I didn’t lie, Jac
k,’ he whimpers. ‘I hadn’t slept with her at that point, innit. I really did back away from her in the club. And then she texted me on Valentine’s Day, and I was so low and lonely that I popped round for a quick drink.’
So there you go. Valentine’s Day — the day of commercialism, despair, desperation, love and sleeping with your ex-boyfriend’s best mate before replying to his lonely-loser text and sleeping with him, as well.
‘Get out of my flat before I fucking kill you,’ I say, marvelling at the dangerously low volume of my own voice. Jasper the thespian nods approvingly. I sound like I mean it. I think I probably do.
After Rick has cleared off, Flatmate Fred says, ‘That was a bit harsh, Jack. At least he owned up to it. That’s the beauty of “I have never” – the drink never lies. The opportunity to show off in a self-consciously coy way always wins through.’
‘Right, you can get out of my flat before I fucking kill you, too,’ I scream dementedly.
‘Jack, you tit, it’s my flat. And having just witnessed your little performance, I’m not convinced that you could “fucking kill” a fly. I am not a fly, ergo I’m staying.’
How do you argue against such classically erudite logic?
And so to bed. Thumping the pillow and imagining it’s Rick’s face.
Saturday 12th March
Made up with Flatmate Fred over a very long and boozy pub lunch.
Afterwards, I came back to the flat and started thinking about last night’s news again. Would I have done the same if I were Rick? After all, Lucy is very attractive, and they’d always got along very well together while we were going out? Had he actually done anything wrong?
Of course, he knew from my anger over her invented snog how much this would hurt me. Some things in life are meant to be off limits. It’s one of a few simple, unwritten rules. You don’t mock your mates’ parents openly, and you don’t sleep with their ex-girlfriends.
But then I’m just as angry with myself. It’s a curiously powerful emotion, jealousy. I just can’t put my finger on the aspect that bothers me the most. Is it the pure physical act? Am I worried that he was better than me? Is he bigger? Did he last longer?
Or is it the emotional theft that it was Valentine’s Day and he was going through the motions of making love to the former love of my life? Did they lie around and chat afterwards? Was there pillow talk? Did they mention my name? Had she been thinking about him while we were going out? Had she fantasised about him during sex with me? Did they share all our private little jokes together? Did she tell him our pet name for my penis? And how could she sleep with a ginger?
These thoughts were all spiralling out of control in my head. They were gut-wrenching in the extreme. That’s the problem with being the dumper as opposed to the dumpee. You get all the pain of the loss and none of the sympathy. It’s all your fault.
Flatmate Fred had tried to listen, but I needed solutions not empathy. I had to talk to someone who would really understand. I rang my dad and told him everything.
‘Jack, you’ll go mad if you carry on thinking about the little details. You’ve got to look at the bigger picture.’
‘Which is?’
‘Well, were you happy with her? Do you ultimately want to be with her? Was she the right woman for you to spend the rest of your life with?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s your answer, then. You’ve got to hold on to that. The rest will sort itself out.’
He was right. Bless the wise old bugger, he was absolutely right. I resolved not to think about it any more. I’d dumped Lucy, I’d foolishly slept with her again (after him — so I still win that one) and they were both free to run their lives as they saw fit. If two lonely people wanted to liven up their drab existence with a couple of hours of meaningless grunting, that was their business. And, with these generous thoughts, I headed out for a night on the tiles with Flatmate Fred and Jasper.
Sunday 13th March
I often wonder how different individual lives in Britain would be if alcohol had never been invented. Just imagine all the couples who would never have got together without a little encouragement. All those unsent text messages and undeclared intentions. Can you imagine dancing, let alone pulling, in a sober club? And just picture all the hair-brained moneymaking schemes and madcap adventures which would never have happened if ethanol hadn’t pickled the sensible connectors in our brains. Not to mention all the unfulfilled resolutions to sort our lives out as the wrath of grapes takes hold the morning after.
Yesterday evening, for example, would have been a great deal less embarrassing for me if I’d decided to curl up on the sofa with a good book and a cup of hot cocoa. As it was, I came home on the night bus at 2.30am and decided to ring Lucy.
This in itself was a stupid idea. All my generous feelings from my earlier conversation with my dad had evaporated. A two-day hangover was starting to kick in, and I wanted to have it out with her about Rick.
What I’d forgotten was that I’d added Leila into the ‘L’s in my mobile, thereby distorting the order in my phone book. This unforeseen hiccup, plus the fact that I had just drunk the recommended monthly units of alcohol in a single weekend, meant that I rang Lucy’s parents by mistake.
For some extraordinary reason I’d set my phone to record our conversation. Perhaps I wanted to use it in evidence later — I cannot fathom the drunken workings of my mind. And so, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I can now transcribe the exchange.
‘Archie Poett speaking,’ says a tired voice.
‘Luscy. Ish that you, Luscy?’
‘This is Salisbury 755750. What do you want?’
‘Who the bloody duck face are you? Where’s Luscy? Hand the mobile over to her. I demand to shpeak to her. And I demand to shpeak to her now.’
‘This is Lucy’s father. Who is this? Why are you ringing at this time? Is something wrong?’
‘Luscy’s father, my blubbering bollocksh. You’re her new boyfriend. You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you? I bet you’ve got a tiny, flacshid, little penish. I know she’s there. Let me shpeak to her.’
‘Is that Jack?’
‘Yesh, it’s Jack.’ I think the mention of my name must have sobered me up slightly. There is a sudden note of fear in my voice.
‘Jack, you’ve rung Lucy’s parents’ house by mistake. Put the phone down, have a cold shower and go to bed.’
‘Yesh, Mr Poett. Oh, my God. I’m very sorry, Mr Poett.’
‘And Jack?’
‘Yesh, Mr Poett.’
‘You won’t remember this, but I just wanted to say that you could have been a son to me. I’m very disappointed.’
‘Mr Poett?’
‘Yes, Jack.’
‘Go fuck yourself, Mr Poett.’
Tuesday 15th March
Flatmate Fred’s finally done sufficient internet ‘research’ to raise the money for the stolen winter-flowering cherry. He’s also been offered a full-time job doing data entry in a real office with real people. He was data enterer of the month. March must have been a bad month without precedent in the www.crapjobs.com community.
However, the ‘ghastliness’ of his brief contact with the working world has convinced him to give his writing career a serious shot again. Anything is better than waking up at a regular time each day, getting dressed and commuting to an office job, he maintains. As he puts it, PJs versus P45s — simple choice.
Wednesday 16th March
Lucy wrote me a very long and very touching letter today (I haven’t received a handwritten letter since school) outlining all the fun times we’d had together. It was uplifting and sad at the same time. It dripped with nostalgia but it wasn’t expectant. I think she was trying to wrap up everything that we’d had into a neat bundle, compartmentalise it, celebrate it and move on. It made me cry — things had been so crap in the last few months that I’d blanked out all the happy times. But it was also a weight off my shoulders. ‘Closure’, I think the word is. It’s a good w
ord.
I also had some apologising to do. Mr Poett is a nice man and doesn’t deserve to be rung up at two-thirty in the morning to be told to go and copulate with himself. So I wrote him one of the most awkward letters of my life.
And it’s here that I feel there is a gap in all our educations. Instead of teaching us stupid role plays in foreign languages — ‘You’re in charge of a broken-down minibus of schoolchildren in Dieppe; explain to the garage mechanic that the carburettor is leaking’ — our schools should have stuck to situations closer to home. Perhaps GCSE English could include a letter-writing module: ‘Whilst inebriated, you telephoned your ex-girlfriend’s father in the early hours to complain about her sleeping with your best friend. In no more than 200 words, write an apology note to the father. Remember to write on alternate lines and leave sufficient time to read over your answer.’
And then there was Rick, who had left a series of long answering-machine messages trying to explain himself. I had begun to feel like a dick for my reaction last Friday. And so I went round to his flat for our second make-up session in two months.
‘I’m so sorry, mate.’ Thump on back. ‘Let’s never let something like this come between us again.’ Double thump on back, pause, another thump, stifled sob, etc., etc.
And then I went home and texted his twin sister, Katie, to see if she’d like a drink sometime. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Thursday 17th March
I walked in on a conversation between Buddy and Rupert (bald) after lunch today. It went something like this:
Buddy: ‘The problem with girls in the city is that they are valuable, overpriced commodities. Even the fattest and ugliest are heavily bid up, like private equity deals in the Middle East.’
Rupert (bald): ‘Yeah, mate, you’re so right. All the best girls are highly leveraged (and they know it). And then there’s the exit strategies to worry about. Very few of them are keen on trade sales.’
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