by Mike Gayle
‘Take a deep breath and calm down,’ said Jo. ‘Getting worked up isn’t going to help anyone.’
Rob sat down on the edge of the sofa. ‘Will this do?’ he snapped.
‘There’s no point in biting my head off just because you didn’t go about things the right way,’ said Jo, as she sat down too. ‘It’s not me you should be angry with, it’s yourself. What did you think would happen, Rob? You’ve been practically lying to Ashley all these weeks. Did you think she was going to forgive you just like that and open her arms to me?’ Rob didn’t answer. ‘That’s exactly what you thought, isn’t it?’ said Jo, incredulous. ‘You thought you were in the right, so Ashley would just forgive your deception and accept me. Honestly, Rob, I thought you were better than that. It could be that Ashley isn’t angry with the situation as much as she’s angry with you for not being upfront with her.’
‘You’re right,’ said Rob, ‘and I’m sorry. This is all my fault. What do we do now?’
‘You have to sort it out with Ashley,’ said Jo. ‘I’m not interested in coming between you and her.’
Rob sighed. ‘Do you want me to call you a cab?’
‘No,’ said Jo, and stood up. ‘It’s still early. I’ll get the bus.’
‘I’ll get your jacket for you,’ said Rob, standing up. They went into the hallway where Rob took Jo’s jacket from the coat rack by the front door and helped her on with it.
‘Look,’ he said, as they stood by the open front door, ‘I don’t know if—’
‘I know,’ said Jo, ‘but you have to think of Ashley first. And that’s fine. That’s how things should be.’ She looked away, and Rob thought she was crying. ‘It’s such a shame,’ she continued, ‘because we could’ve been really good friends.’ Without looking back, she stepped outside, walked along the path, opened and closed the front gate, then turned towards the main road and disappeared from sight.
PART FIVE
(Principally concerning a certain amount of confusion)
Talking and thinking it over
It was one o’clock on Saturday afternoon, two days after Ashley and Rob’s failed dinner with Jo. Ashley was having lunch at Wagamama on Corporation Street with her friends Mia and Christine. She had told them about meeting Jo and how she and Rob were now barely on speaking terms.
‘I can completely understand you not talking to Rob,’ said Mia, once Ashley had finished telling the story, ‘but where does he get off on not talking to you when he’s just turned up with another woman he’s been seeing behind your back and expects you to like it?’
‘But she’s just a friend,’ said Ashley.
‘But how do you know she’s just a friend?’ asked Christine.
‘Because Rob said so and—’
‘But he’s a man,’ interrupted Mia. ‘And don’t get me wrong I like Rob but in this case he’s being more than a bit naïve. It’s highly likely that he believes this woman wants to be friends with him – he’s that kind of bloke, an absolute sweetie who doesn’t realise how scheming some women can be – but, come on, we’re women. We know better. There’s only one reason why a woman hangs out with someone else’s boyfriend.’
‘I agree,’ said Christine. ‘She’s definitely up to something. I mean, you just don’t go befriending someone else’s boyfriend, do you? It’s not the done thing and she must know that. In my entire life I’ve never intentionally made friends with someone else’s boyfriend unless their girlfriend was a close friend of mine.’
‘And that is the only exception to the rule as far as I’m aware,’ added Mia. ‘Even then you have to be careful.’
‘But you’re friends with male doctors at the hospital,’ said Ashley, ‘and some are married or have girlfriends.’
‘Yes, but that’s different,’ said Mia. ‘The guys at work are colleagues as well as friends. I didn’t go out and meet them in some bar.’
‘But that’s just it,’ said Ashley. ‘Rob works from home on his own. He could never have met someone like Jo in that context. What does it matter where they met? And to be truthful she didn’t seem scheming to me,’ added Ashley. ‘She was as shocked as I was when she realised Rob had kept me in the dark about her.’
‘I’m not convinced,’ said Christine. ‘She’s just a good actress.’
‘Anyway,’ added Mia, ‘I can’t believe you’re taking the trouble to see things from Rob’s point of view when he’s so clearly in the wrong. Surely you can’t be contemplating letting them be friends even if it is all innocent.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because even if it is innocent the one thing we do know is that Rob gets on with her so well that he risked telling you he wants to be friends with her.’
‘Mia’s right,’ said Christine. ‘That means he really likes her already.’
‘As a friend,’ corrected Ashley. ‘He likes her as a friend. Men and women can be just good friends – look at Neil and me. We’ve been friends since university. In fact, you were really good friends with a lot of the guys at medical school as I recall – Charlie Ingham, Sam Cottrell, Rupesh Uppal. Don’t you remember?’
‘The operative word there is “were”,’ responded Christine. ‘We were good friends with those guys back then. But when you’re young it’s easy to be friends with boys because real life hasn’t begun. You’re living in this weird student bubble where you can sleep in the same bed as a boy without it meaning anything. I lost count of the times I crashed out in one of the guys’ beds overnight. And they were all perfect gentlemen the next morning.’
‘There was something gloriously asexual about those times,’ added Mia. ‘I suppose it’s because when you’re at university and you’re meeting this huge body of people – some male, some female – you can’t possibly fancy all of the men because of the sheer number of them so out of necessity some of them naturally become friends. By the time you’ve left university to go into the real world you know so much about each other and have such a shared history that any potential sexual attraction has worn off.
‘And if it hasn’t,’ continued Mia, ‘like with me and Rupesh—’
Ashley laughed. ‘I’d forgotten you two had a bit of a will-they-won’t-they thing going on for quite a while after we graduated, even while you were seeing other people.’
‘And do you remember what stopped it?’ asked Mia.
‘Rupesh marrying that trainee barrister he met when he was travelling in Japan didn’t help.’
‘Exactly,’ said Mia. ‘Rupesh and his wife live two roads away from me in Didsbury and the last time I spoke to him for longer than five minutes was at his wedding two years ago. Why? Because his wife has got him on lock-down. I don’t doubt for a second that she’s told him in no uncertain terms he’s not allowed to see me any more. And I don’t blame her – not that I’d go after him now that he’s married. But I definitely understand the idea of a woman trying to protect her investment.’
‘Investment?’ echoed Ashley, incredulously. ‘Rob’s not an investment, he’s my boyfriend.’
‘You’ve been with him for three years,’ said Christine. ‘He’s living in your house and one day you want him to be the father of your children. Of course he’s an investment.’
‘Have to agree there, I’m afraid,’ chipped in Mia. ‘And in the same way that you wouldn’t leave your savings in the hands of a convicted embezzler there’s no way you should be letting Rob hang out with another woman. You have to put your foot down.’
‘And how do I do that without losing him? I already feel terrible for the way I behaved on Thursday. I can’t stand him not talking to me. And it feels wrong. Why should I be able to say who he can and can’t be friends with? He’s a grown man.’
‘It’s easy,’ said Christine. ‘I do it all the time with Joel. When he first met me he was friends with all of these beery rugby-playing types whose idea of a good time was drinking until they fell over. I told him if he wanted to carry on seeing me he’d have to stop seeing them. And he did. Now he’s g
ot much nicer friends.’
‘You have to put your foot down,’ said Mia firmly. ‘No two ways about it.’
‘It’s not even that clear cut,’ said Ashley, with a sigh. ‘You’re forgetting that Rob doesn’t have any real friends in Manchester. He’s tried really hard and nothing’s happened. He’s left London, his life and his friends for me. And if he hasn’t got his own friends and a bit of independence from me there’s no way that us living together will work.’
‘Well, if you let him see this woman,’ said Mia, ‘you’ll regret it.’
‘Regret it or not,’ said Ashley, quietly, ‘if I want Rob and me to work I haven’t got a choice.’
Two people
Later that night as Rob and Ashley were lying in bed after an evening spent apart at opposite ends of the house, Ashley finally spoke: ‘Babe?’
‘Yeah?’ said Rob.
‘Can we talk?’
‘Of course,’ said Rob. ‘But before you begin can I just say one thing? I’m really sorry for not telling you Jo was a girl. It was so stupid of me. I put you in a really awkward position.’
‘It did take me by surprise, and I reacted badly to it. But I’ve thought about nothing else over the last few days and now I know why you didn’t tell me and . . . I’m partly to blame.’
‘Why?’
‘For not letting you know that I trust you.’
‘You trust me?’ replied Rob, with such bewilderment in his voice that he almost sounded as if she was mad to entertain the idea.
‘Of course,’ she replied, ‘and I should’ve told you sooner.’
‘Sooner?’ echoed Rob.
‘Yes. In all the time we’ve been together you’ve never once commented on my friendship with Neil. Not once. And believe me, that hasn’t gone unnoticed.’
‘I didn’t want to make a big deal of it,’ said Rob. ‘One of your close mates happens to be a bloke – so what? If you wanted to be with Neil you’d be with him now instead of with me.’
‘I’m with you because it’s you I love. It’s you I want to spend the rest of my life with. And being friends with someone of the opposite sex doesn’t have to be an issue. It doesn’t have to be – as you always say – “a thing”. It can just be what it is – two people being mates.’
‘Yeah,’ said Rob. ‘Of course it can.’
‘All I want is for you to be happy. Don’t think for a second that I don’t appreciate all you’ve done for us. I know how much you still miss the boys and London, how much you miss being where you feel you belong. I know this year has been tough for you. You’ve been working on your own in the office all day every day with no one to talk to and I’ve been doing nights. I’m sure there must have been times when you asked yourself, “What am I doing here?” and wanted to pack your bags. But you didn’t. You stuck it out for us. So part of me thinks, female or not, how could I begrudge you a new friend when it’s the one thing you most need?’
‘But?’
Ashley smiled softly. ‘You’re right. There is a but . . . I know it’s not logical or, given my friendship with Neil, fair . . . But I can’t help wishing that J-O really was a J-O-E – it would be so much simpler if she was.’
‘But it’s not,’ said Rob.
‘I know,’ said Ashley. ‘And you have to admit that even though you get on with her really well you’d prefer it, too, if you were friends with someone more like Phil or Woodsy.’
Rob nodded. Given a choice between hanging out with a guy he liked and a girl, he would take the guy every time. It would be a simpler friendship, with no room for confusion, it would feel more natural – it would be easier.
‘Well,’ said Ashley, ‘how about you give this making-friends thing one last try? We’ve still got the phone numbers of the guys who responded to the ad in City List and one might even be better friend material than Jo. Of course it’s up to you, but what if you give it a month? Work your way through them and see what happens.’
‘And what about Jo?’
‘You can see her too and I won’t say a word – I promise. If you get to the end of the month and you haven’t found someone you like you can invite Jo here again and I’ll make us a lovely dinner and that will be my last word on the subject. How does that sound?’
‘If it makes you happy I’ll do it,’ said Rob. ‘And I’ll sort out my second meeting first thing in the morning.’
Two men on a date
It was a quarter past seven when Rob entered BlueBar for his seven thirty “bloke-date” with Andy Ward, a thirty-two-year-old mail-order software supplier who was new to the area having spent the last few years in Spain. Rob had originally planned to arrive half an hour earlier in order to knock back enough alcohol to prevent him running away, but on his first attempt to leave the house he had only got as far as High Lane before he lost his nerve and went home to tell Ashley it would never work. But before she could try to persuade him to go, Rob remembered that he wasn’t meeting Andy for himself but for Ashley and felt better. Without a word he had kissed her goodbye and headed for the bar.
As usual BlueBar was busy but this time there were plenty of seats so Rob bought himself a Carlsberg and sat down near the window that looked out on to Wilbraham Road. Just as he was reaching the half-way point on his pint, a guy with round glasses, jeans, a black Ramones T-shirt and a tan leather jacket – just as he’d described on the phone – came in and scanned the room. This was it. Rob’s second date with a bloke was about to begin. And he was staying put, no matter what.
‘Hi,’ said the man, offering Rob his hand, ‘I’m Andy.’
‘Hi, Andy,’ replied Rob, standing up and shaking it in as manly a fashion as he could muster. ‘I didn’t see you come in. I’m Rob.’
‘That’s really good to hear,’ said Andy, and laughed, ‘because there’s another guy sitting on his own – over there – and I was really hoping it wasn’t him.’ He pointed across the room to where a fragile-looking octogenarian, sporting a loud checked suit, was sitting smoking a pipe. ‘What are you drinking?’
‘I’ll get this,’ offered Rob.
‘You can get the next round,’ Andy replied, grinning widely. ‘I’ve got a feeling we’re in for a good night.’
Talking the talk
It was Andy who took the lead in their conversational debut. They exchanged biographies, and it turned out that Andy had gone to a further-education college in Luton. As Rob had spent a lot of his youth drinking in Luton because it was close to Bedford they had plenty to talk about in terms of the pubs and bars they had frequented.
Andy explained to Rob how, after leaving college, he had worked in marketing for a number of small companies in the north-west but had grown bored with his job and moved to Madrid where he had taught English as a foreign language. A few months ago his Chorlton-based older brother had invited him to become co-director of the mail-order-software company he had set up, which was now going well. The downside of moving back to the UK, however, was his reliance on his brother and sister-in-law for a social life, which was why he’d answered the ad.
Following the basic biographical information, the conversation widened into interests. Andy talked about recent albums he’d bought and films he’d seen, and all the time Rob could see that his brain was ticking over just like his own was as they wondered, is this the right thing to say? At one point Andy revealed that LA Confidential was one of his top five all-time-favourite films. Without thinking, Rob said he thought it was one of the worst films in celluloid history, only surpassed in awfulness by 1492 – Conquest of Paradise, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Scarface.
‘You don’t like Scarface either?’ marvelled Andy. ‘It’s a classic. One of De Palma’s best films.’
‘Granted I’ve never been to Cuba,’ said Rob, ‘but I’m pretty sure not everyone who lives there speaks like they’ve got a mouth full of golf balls.’
Had Rob been talking to Phil or Woodsy this outburst might have jerked a few laughs, and an extended harangue until he s
hut up and got another round of drinks in, but unfortunately, Rob’s ‘Scarface is crap’ riff was met by stony silence, swiftly followed by the announcement that Andy was going to the loo.
Rob hadn’t meant to be so forthright so early in the conversation but he’d felt so relaxed with Andy that for a few moments he had forgotten he wasn’t talking to one of his London friends. But Andy wasn’t an old friend he had known for over ten years: they had met through an advert and until an hour and a half ago had been complete strangers.
Round two
Neither man returned to films for the rest of the evening. Instead they talked about their favourite albums (Andy’s, Radiohead’s The Bends; Rob’s, Prince’s Purple Rain). Wary of insulting Andy any further Rob praised the Radiohead album, but reserved a modicum of scorn for their later output, which Andy agreed was at best ‘not up to much’. In turn he admitted that while he liked a number of singles from Purple Rain, he had been put off buying the album because, like the White Album and What’s Going On, it always appeared in those ‘Hundred Best Albums Ever’ charts published in music magazines. This amused Rob and he confessed he’d used exactly the same logic for never purchasing Blue Lines, Exile On Main Street or any of the music of Bob Dylan.
‘It’s the rebel in us.’ Andy chuckled. ‘We’re obviously both big on nonconformity.’
‘Yeah,’ replied Rob. ‘We’re really sticking it to the Man.’
At around ten, having discussed everything from football and Formula One to their schooldays, and what they had thought they would be doing when they were thirty, they left the bar and went to Azad Manzil, an Indian restaurant on Barlow Moor Road. Over chicken Jalfrezi, Rogan Josh and four pints of Carlsberg they talked about family, friends and ex-girlfriends. Just after midnight they called for the bill and paid up. As they were putting on their jackets Rob realised he felt great. While his evening with Andy had been no better than an average night out with his London friends, he could see that there was scope for improvement. The important thing was that he and Andy had had men’s conversation. They’d explored the stuff that mattered to them in a way that no kind-hearted girlfriend, family member or even platonic female friend could. Rob was overjoyed to have spent time talking bloke stuff with a real live bloke.