by Mike Gayle
Given the frequent inanity of their conversations, none of Rob’s friends was the slightest bit fazed.
‘He’d be one of those things that come in forty-eight parts with a ring binder,’ said Ian Two.
‘My dad collected one about steam trains,’ chipped in Kevin.
‘I used to get one when I was a kid,’ added Darren. ‘It was called the Unexplained, about the paranormal and freaky stuff.’
‘That’s it!’ said Phil. ‘That’s Woodsy all over.’
‘And what about Rob?’ asked Woodsy.
In perfect unison they all said, ‘Women’s Weekly,’ and sat there laughing, until Rob was reminded to get off his backside and go to the bar.
At the end of the evening a sombre mood fell across them. The main group said goodbye, so Rob, Phil and Woodsy walked back to the house that would now be Phil and Woodsy’s, rather than Phil and Rob’s. Having spent months looking for somewhere else to live, Phil had decided that the best place for him was where he already was and promoted Woodsy from the sofa to Rob’s room.
The next morning, Rob transferred his boxed and bin-bagged worldly goods into a hire van and said a final goodbye to Tooting and his friends.
‘This is it, boys,’ he said, as he climbed in.
‘Send us a postcard from sunny Manchester, mate,’ said Woodsy, as he waved Rob off from the front doorstep.
‘Take it easy, mate,’ said Phil, then he went over to the van and shook Rob’s hand. ‘Make sure you visit us soon.’
Rob’s first Monday morning in Manchester
It was eleven o’clock on Rob’s first Monday as a fully-fledged resident of Manchester. Having decided that he wasn’t going to start work until the following week he had spent the morning setting up his new office in Ashley’s guest bedroom and registering at the local doctor’s surgery, then walking around Chorlton.
Rob had never lived anywhere like Chorlton in his life: it bore about as much similarity to Tooting as Clacton-on-Sea might to the French Riviera. The two places just didn’t compare. Before Rob had started coming to Chorlton regularly to visit Ashley, he had never seen such a high concentration of vegan delicatessens, boutiques, café-bars, gastro pubs and restaurants outside places like Hampstead or Brighton. And, as far as he could determine, the entire area was populated chiefly by Guardian readers, actors, senior medical staff, vegans, journalists, musicians, BBC employees, Reiki healers and, that catch-all phrase for the educated and affluent, ‘young professionals’. As Rob wandered aimlessly past the shops on High Lane, taking in the cool but crisp January day, he saw two actors from Coronation Street, a man in a woolly hat whom he was sure was the musician Badly Drawn Boy, a well-known club DJ and a local TV news presenter.
An hour later, having exhausted all of Chorlton’s must-see sights, including King Bee Records, North Star Deli and Chorlton Bookshop, he caught the 85 bus into the centre of Manchester. There, he visited Market Street, the Arndale Centre, the Triangle and the Printworks, then wandered up and down Deansgate and the area around King Street until he was exhausted.
As he left Waterstone’s in St Anne Square, just after two o’clock, it began to rain heavily so he took shelter underneath the awning outside Dixon’s. From this vantage-point he craned his neck to stare at the slate grey sky. People walking past him looked up too, as if they were expecting to glimpse a bird or a plane or even a suicide attempt from one of the roofs of the surrounding buildings. But there was nothing to see except the rain-filled clouds. And what had started as a pause to save himself from a soaking turned into a philosophical reverie.
He had only been in Manchester three days, yet he already missed London more than he had thought possible. He missed the familiarity of Oxford Street, the warmth of Covent Garden – even Londoners. Every now and again, as he stared at the sky, he overheard a passing conversation and the Manchester accent reminded him of all the times he’d been abroad and heard words spoken but had been unable to make sense of them. And for those few moments he was completely and utterly lost in translation.
Hanging on the telephone
Later that afternoon, back at Beech Road, Rob had tired of emptying boxes, setting up flat-pack shelves and finding new homes for his possessions, which had once had a perfect home in Tooting. At an all-time low, he picked up the phone and called Phil at work under the guise of finding out how Lee, the new graphic-design trainee, was coming along and to check up on the most recent project that had come in from a food-packaging client. On a social basis Rob and Phil rarely spoke on the phone for longer than a few minutes: one of Rob’s proudest pub facts was that he and Phil had once called to arrange a drink and their conversation had lasted a staggering eight seconds and contained five words – a personal record.
Today, however, Rob established a new record – for endurance. Without even realising it, the two men were on the phone for over an hour (smashing a previous record of twenty-five minutes). Although they talked about work most of their conversation was taken up with matters they would normally have reserved for the pub. At one point Phil joked that, if they stayed on the line and opened a can of beer each, they could have a virtual drink together. Rob named their virtual pub the Telecom Arms and made himself landlord. Although it was a joke, he felt the same lump in his throat that he’d had on the night he had left London. Phone calls to Phil would never be the same as a pint and a chat with him in person.
‘I’d better go, mate,’ said Phil, at last. ‘I’ve got a tonne of work still to do before I can think about going home.’
‘Yeah, of course, mate,’ said Rob, gathering himself together. ‘No problem.’ He paused, then added, ‘Before you go, any idea when you and Woodsy might make the trip up here to sunny Manchester?’
‘You’re top of the list, mate,’ said Phil, ‘as soon as our workload goes down. The sooner you get your ISDN line the better.’
Rob laughed. ‘They said it should be fitted by the beginning of next week, you slave-driver.’
‘I emailed you a file this morning. Did you get it?’
‘I’ve only just got the computer set up. I’ll check it out in a minute. What is it?’
‘Nothing much,’ said Phil, ‘but I guarantee you’ll love it.’
‘Right,’ said Rob. ‘And I’ll send you the ideas I’ve had so far on the Voss-Pearce Consulting site.’
‘Cheers,’ said Phil. ‘I’ll take a look at them and mail you first thing in the morning.’
Rob pressed ‘end call’ and sank back into the sofa. He thought about unloading the dishwasher before Ashley got home but he couldn’t be bothered. He thought about unpacking his suitcases but he couldn’t be bothered with that either. Then he thought about the email Phil had sent him and suddenly found some energy. He took the stairs two at a time, ran into the spare room and turned on the computer.
Within minutes he was downloading the attachment on Phil’s email, which turned out to be an MP3. As he listened to the track on his computer speakers, Rob found himself grinning, but as the song ended, he suddenly felt sad. He wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone in the world, least of all himself, but he missed Phil – he missed him like he’d miss his right arm if he lost it. In fact, he thought, as he listened to the song again, I’d willingly give up a limb just to go for a drink and a chat about nothing with him. An arm. A leg. A foot. Pretty much anything.
Rob stood up, grabbed a blank CD-R from the desk behind him, dropped it into his computer tower and burned the solitary track on to it. Moments later he ejected the CD from his computer and clutching it in his hands he made his way downstairs to the kitchen.
Coming home
As Rob was going into the kitchen Ashley was pulling up outside the house. It had been a long, hard day at the hospital, but although she was exhausted, she was also elated to be coming home to Rob for the first time. She had been worrying all day about how he was settling in to being in Manchester – even while she was seeing patients – but had refrained from calling him for fear of over
whelming him. The fact was Ashley felt guilty. She felt guilty for having forced the issue. She felt guilty that he was now without friends. But mostly she felt guilty because while he had transformed his entire life for her, little in hers had changed. She was in the same house, doing the same job and could spend time with the same friends. She almost wished she could make a sacrifice equal to Rob’s so that things wouldn’t seem so unbalanced, but she couldn’t think of anything that would come across as more than an empty gesture.
As she made her way up the path to the front door, rummaging in her bag for her house keys, she stopped and listened. She could hear music, which seemed louder the nearer she came to the house. She went inside and walked along the hallway to the kitchen. When she opened the door, the sight before her eyes made her laugh so hard and for so long that she felt as if she would never stop. Rob was standing on the oak kitchen table her parents had given her as a housewarming gift. Eyes closed, he was playing air guitar to a cheesy eighties-sounding rock song coming from the portable CD player on the kitchen counter.
Still laughing, Ashley walked over to the CD player and turned it down. Rob’s eyes flew open and then he grinned at her. She was glad he seemed happy.
‘Hey, you,’ he said, still on the table. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you, you nutter?’ said Ashley. ‘You wouldn’t hear anything over that noise. What was that racket?’
‘Van Halen,’ he replied.
‘Van Halen as in “Jump”?’
‘The very same. Which is strange since I don’t like “Jump” because it reminds me of school discos when everyone used to jump when they got to the chorus.’
‘So what does this song remind you of?’
‘It’s called “Dreams” and reminds me of driving along Highway 61 in an open-topped Cadillac,’ he replied. ‘Not that I’ve ever done it, but I might one day.’ He climbed down from the table and kissed her. ‘Musically speaking, Phil’s in a retro phase and he’s been rediscovering the back catalogue of a certain Mr Eddie Van Halen. He emailed the song to me this morning saying, and I quote, “It rocked.” He’s right too. It does rock.’
‘I knew he had to be involved in it somewhere,’ said Ashley, putting down her bag. ‘You two are like Thelma and Louise.’ She smiled. ‘Anyway, apart from listening to soft-rock anthems what else have you been up to? Highlights and lowlights.’
‘My lowlight . . .’ said Rob, and took a moment to think ‘ . . . was getting caught in the rain in town today. I know it’s January but does it ever stop raining in this place? It’s a wonder the United and City players haven’t all got webbed feet. It’s just so relentlessly grey here – it’s as if it’s in the air.’
‘You get used to it,’ Ashley told him. ‘What about your highlight?’
A broad grin spread across his face. ‘Opening my eyes a few seconds ago to see you standing in front of me.’
‘That, my darling boyfriend, was the right answer.’ Ashley kissed him again.
‘How about you? How was your day?’
‘My lowlight was shopping in the supermarket near the hospital at lunchtime. The queues were huge and there were no fresh vegetables. It was awful. I’m afraid it’s just pasta for us tonight.’
Rob put his arms round her. ‘And what was your highlight?’
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ she replied. Without another word she took his hand and led him upstairs to their bedroom.
One day in Rob’s life
It was three minutes past nine on the one-month anniversary of Rob’s arrival in Manchester, and he was already swearing at his computer. It wasn’t that it had crashed. It wasn’t that it was no longer letting him do an important task. It wasn’t even that he had accidentally deleted the last half-hour’s work. He was swearing at his computer because he had just checked his email to discover that someone called Galactica2345 had outbid him on eBay, by a measly fifty pence, for a twelve-inch tall, boxed, fully jointed and posable Mr T doll.
He had intended it to be the jewel in the crown of the constantly evolving collection of items he had bought from eBay in the previous weeks. Before the move he had never had time to browse on eBay, but since he’d been in Manchester he’d become addicted to it. At first he couldn’t think of anything he wanted but after he had come across an entry for a mint condition 1982 Action Man, he had decided that his ‘thing’ would be to collect toys from his youth. His hoard of what Ashley privately referred to as ‘Rob’s treasure trove of crap’ now filled several shelves in his office. Rob looked forlornly at the space he’d cleared between his Six Million Dollar Man Transport and Repair Station (a bargain at £34.77) and his fully working Commodore 64 computer (not quite such a bargain at £122.98), then returned to his screen, deleted the offending email and opened up Dreamweaver.
It had not escaped his attention that there might be a direct correlation between the volume of items he was buying off eBay and the length of time he’d been without friends in Manchester. In fact, it had occurred to him that if he didn’t acquire a social life soon there was a strong chance that he would end up owning absolutely everything he’d ever wanted in his life. And what would he do then? Why would he get out of bed in the mornings? How would he keep it together? eBay took his mind off how lonely he was. For the short period of time that he was logged on to the site he could forget his lack of friends and someone to talk to during the day and focus on things he could do something about: bidding against other socially challenged Internet geeks who, because they, too, were bidding in the middle of the day, must also work from home.
And that was Rob’s main problem.
Working from home.
Other than fielding occasional work-related calls and emails from Phil, Rob was left to his own devices, which was the opposite of how his working day had been in London. In Wandsworth, Rob had spent his day taking calls from friends and arranging nights out for the week, holding meetings with Phil at the pub across the road from their office, occasionally dealing with a midday drop-in from Woodsy, looking for a companion and a lunchtime pint, as well as an awful lot of work. Now, however, his London friends weren’t calling to arrange nights out, meetings were happening mostly over the phone. Woodsy was having his lunchtime pint alone and, with no interruptions, Rob was getting more work done than he’d ever done before.
Bad as things were, Rob took some consolation from the knowledge that at the end of the day he would be with Ashley. There were times when he felt as if it was only when she returned home that he could start living. So, when he wanted to go to the pub, he went with Ashley. When he wanted to go to the cinema, he went with Ashley. In fact, when he wanted to do anything outside the house but didn’t want to do it alone, Ashley came with him. It wasn’t just that Ashley gave Rob access to a social life, she was his social life.
As much as Rob hated to admit that he needed anything (until this point he had scoffed at the idea that ‘no man is an island’) the truth was that he did. And while Ashley was a great way of linking him to a social life on the mainland of humanity, Rob really needed some friends in Manchester whom he could call his own.
‘I’m a Billy No-mates,’ he explained to his mum, one Thursday evening when, to her surprise, he called her for a chat. ‘I haven’t got a single friend up here.’
She thought he was exaggerating, so he put her straight.
‘I’m not making this up. Mum. And I’m not going to realise suddenly that actually, yes, I do have friends – like the old man who says hello to me in the corner shop, or the young couple who live in the house next door and smile at me whenever I get into my car. And your suggestion about the guy in the supermarket who always asks if I want help packing my bags? It’s not true. Mum, none of these people are my friends. The old man who says hello in the corner shop can often be seen greeting various inanimate objects around Chorlton, including lamp-posts, mountain bikes chained to railings and the ancient Dr Barnado’s box in the shape of a small child outside th
e newsagent’s. The couple who live next door only say hello if, by mistake, they come out of their house at the same time as I’m coming out of mine. When they’re on the ball they spot me first and either linger in their hallway, pretending to pick up the post until I’ve gone, or sprint down the path like Olympic athletes on steroids and drive off like the clappers. Honestly, Mum, it never ceases to amaze me just how far we English will go to avoid saying something as potentially embarrassing as ‘Hello’.
‘And as for the guy in the supermarket, I can tell by his voice that he doesn’t care whether I want my bags packed or not. Why should he? He’s probably got far more important things to worry about. So, to answer your question, have I made any new friends yet?, the answer is one hundred per cent, no.’
A night out with Neil
It was just after eight o’clock on the following Friday night and Rob was sitting at a table in the bar at the Cornerhouse Cinema on the junction of Oxford Road and Whitworth Street when he spotted his companion for the evening.
‘Hello, mate,’ said Neil, and shook Rob’s hand formally. ‘Good to see you.’
‘Good to see you too,’ said Rob.
‘Have you been waiting long?’ asked Neil, taking off his coat.
‘No,’ lied Rob, who had seen the same group of students wearing ‘UMIST Hockey Club Pub Crawl Mania’ T-shirts walk past the window twice.
‘What are you drinking?’ asked Neil.
‘Carlsberg, if that’s okay,’ said Rob.
‘Of course,’ said Neil. ‘I remember now. Ash once told me you’re particular about your beer. So, you’re a Carlsberg man?’
‘I drink Guinness too,’ added Rob, in an effort to make himself seem less picky. ‘Although it depends what mood I’m in.’