Brand New Friend

by Mike Gayle

  ‘It wasn’t a line,’ said Rob.

  ‘But it isn’t how people make friends in the real world, is it?’ said Leah. ‘It’s how people have one-night stands that they bitterly regret the next day.’

  Rob watched them leave, and as the glass doors closed he realised she was right: making friends was all about context. If he’d met Leah at work or been introduced to her through mutual friends she wouldn’t have had a qualm about seeing him again. But because they were strangers and had met in a bar it was never going to happen. People didn’t make friends with strangers in bars, no matter how much they liked them. Especially when one was a man and the other a woman.

  Conversion step three:

  Two men and some Red Stripe

  The following weekend Rob had planned to go to London to see Phil and whichever of the boys he could persuade to come out for a weekend involving drinking in the Queen’s Head on Friday night, a house party in Camberwell on Saturday night and five-a-side football in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon. At the last minute, however, he called Phil and cancelled, claiming he was ‘feeling like he was coming down with something’, even though he was fine.

  Rob had come to an epiphany of sorts. He was sick of running away from Manchester and tired of depending on his old friends for a social life. He told himself that he needed to try to stand on his own two feet and find a way of making life work in Manchester.

  On Friday night he stayed in with Ashley, a home-delivery pizza and Top of the Pops (when he should have been out with Phil and Woodsy in the Queen’s). On Saturday morning, (when he’d planned to be sleeping off the effects of a night at the Queen’s) Rob found himself in town with Ashley, in search of a new shower curtain, a set of wine glasses, embroidered cushions and cinnamon room spray. Around midday (when Rob should have been ordering a fried English breakfast from the Sunshine café on Tooting Broadway) he was in Stock on Norfolk Street, discussing potential honeymoon destinations over seafood linguine. And on Saturday evening (when Rob should have been enjoying a pre-party drinking session at the Queen’s) he was at home, surrounded by Ashley’s friends, with an evening of drinking, finger food and board games ahead of him.

  Among the usual crowd who came to Ashley’s impromptu gatherings, like Christine and Joel, Luke and Lauren, Jason and Louise, Mia and Edwin and, of course, Neil, was someone Rob had never met before: Justine, Neil’s relatively new girlfriend. At the beginning of the evening he had a chat with her. Justine worked in advertising in London and they knew some people in common. Rob would have talked to her for longer but he made the mistake of pausing to change the CD and when he returned she was discussing house prices with Mia and Christine. Disheartened, he left the room to get a beer.

  Crouching over the fridge, Rob stared inside looking for inspiration: there were bottles of Budvar, which Joel had brought, Luke’s cans of Boddington’s bitter, Jason’s Löw-enbraü and Neil’s Red Stripe, but there was no Guinness or Carlsberg. Rob hated Budvar, loathed Boddington’s, balked at Löwenbraü and was scornful of Red Stripe, but the fact remained that he wanted a drink. He scanned all the bottles and cans again and found himself reaching for a Red Stripe. He promised himself that if it was too disgusting he would throw it down the drain and run to the off-licence even though it was raining.

  Grimacing – as if he was about to be poisoned – he opened the can and took a swig, waiting for his taste buds to recoil. They didn’t. In fact, the opposite happened. They practically purred.

  ‘Didn’t know you liked Red Stripe,’ said a voice from behind Rob.

  Rob turned to see Neil.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. ‘You’re right. I don’t normally drink anything but Carlsberg or Guinness but, well, this stuff’s all right.’

  ‘Can you grab one for me?’ asked Neil. ‘I only came in to get away from Mia and Christine banging on about house prices but I might as well make the journey worthwhile.’

  Rob handed him a can. ‘I suggest we stay here until they’ve finished.’

  Neil opened his beer. ‘That could be a while. I’m pretty sure after Chorlton they’ll be on to Didsbury.’

  ‘And then Wythenshawe,’ added Rob, grinning.

  ‘And up-and-coming Withington.’

  ‘Not forgetting highly desirable Crumpsall.’

  ‘How long do you reckon it’ll take them to do the whole of the north-west?’

  ‘All night. And maybe into the early morning.’

  ‘Well, we might as well make ourselves comfortable,’ said Neil, and sat down at the kitchen table.

  ‘That,’ said Rob, ‘sounds like a great idea.’

  Rob couldn’t tell whether it was the Red Stripe that they finished off or the Budvar and Löwenbraü that they started on, whether Neil was behaving differently because of his girlfriend or whether he himself was relaxed because he had drunk so much, but their mini drinking session was a turning-point for the two men. Suddenly the awkwardness between them disappeared. Rob laughed so hard at a few of Neil’s jokes that he couldn’t breathe. Riding this conversational high Rob discovered a host of things he hadn’t known about him. Neil revealed, for instance, that the first record he’d ever bought was the seven-inch single of ‘Welcome to The Rat Race’ by the Specials and his first album was Eat To The Beat by Blondie – which impressed him, and even more so when Neil revealed that he had been only eight at the time.

  From this point the conversation went up a gear and the revelations came thick and fast. Neil, too, had a minor obsession with eBay but rather than collecting toys from his childhood he bought cult sixties and seventies first-edition paperbacks (everything from British pulp fiction to obscure novelisations of Italian horror films). He, too, thought that Scarface was one of the world’s most overrated films; he, too, had given up buying Radiohead albums until they stopped being so wilfully experimental. But the moment when Neil finally stopped being ‘Neil’ and became someone far more interesting was late in the evening when Rob had insisted he should hear a song that would change his life for ever. He turned up the volume of the stereo and, air guitar at the ready, pressed play. Within three seconds of the intro Neil yelled, ‘“Dreams”, van Halen.’

  ‘How did you know?’ asked Rob, dropping his air guitar.

  ‘Misspent youth,’ explained Neil. ‘Back in the day I had long hair and too-tight jeans.’ He laughed. ‘How do you know it? I’d never imagined you’d have a closet rubbish-rock-music phase to confess to.’

  ‘No rock phase,’ said Rob. ‘My mate Phil sent it to me ages ago.’

  ‘Well, tell him from me,’ said Neil, grinning, ‘he’s got great taste in music.’

  Conversion step four: Repeat step three

  ‘Morning, babe,’ said Rob, rubbing his eyes, as a fully dressed Ashley entered their bedroom with the cordless telephone in her hand.

  ‘Afternoon, more like,’ she replied.

  Rob stared at the alarm clock on her bedside table. ‘Is this thing right?’

  ‘Do you mean, “Is it really four o’clock in the afternoon?”’ She laughed. ‘If so, yes, it is!’

  ‘I feel terrible,’ he said.

  ‘Really? I wonder why. Could it be that you and Neil were boozing downstairs until the early hours?’

  ‘Last night is a bit of a blur,’ he confessed.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Ashley. ‘So I take it you can’t recall promising your new best friend that you’d go for a drink with him tonight?’

  Rob winced. ‘He won’t remember. We’d had too much to drink and got carried away. A one-nighter. Definitely not to be repeated.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Ashley, grinning, and handed Rob the phone. ‘So why is Neil on the phone to check that you’re coming out tonight?’

  Despite his thumping headache Rob agreed to meet Neil in BlueBar, on the condition that they limited themselves to a quick pint before last orders.

  It was a repeat of the previous night: lots of laughs, good conversations and anecdotes. In fact, it was such a success th
at afterwards Rob went back to Neil’s flat in Didsbury where they listened to a few CDs Neil had bought over the weekend. Rob didn’t get home until a quarter past three when, to make matters worse, he remembered he’d left his house keys in his office. He had to ring the bell for Ashley to let him in.

  When she opened the door with ‘What time do you call this?’ Rob laughed and fell over. And that night although he had to sleep on the sofa and was forced to spend the rest of the week apologising he didn’t mind because he was sure he’d made a new friend. Soon he was seeing Neil regularly for a drink and spending the rest of his time with Ashley. And everything was great. His life was back on track. Jo was history.

  Back to BlueBar

  It was just after nine on Rob’s big night out with Neil’s friends and Rob was in his element. So far he and the others had discussed topics as diverse as ‘Will there ever be peace in the Middle East?’ posed by Gavin, right through to ‘John or Paul? Which was the most talented Beatle?’, Jonesy’s offering.

  ‘Okay, then,’ began Paolo, ‘who’s the most attractive screen actress – living or dead – of all time, and in what film did they look their best?’

  ‘I’m off to the gents, gents,’ announced Rob, who had been resisting the urge so that he didn’t miss any top-quality conversation. ‘But that’s a brilliant question Paolo, mate, and the answer, without any doubt, is Ingrid Bergman in To Have and Have Not. Women really don’t get any better than her in that film.’

  Paolo and the others laughed and immediately offered their own suggestions. As Rob headed across the room towards the loos he wore a huge grin. He was happy. He was enjoying himself. He even decided to come up with a few extra nominations in case his friends were still talking about actresses when he got back to them. As he entered the gents he wondered whether Jean Seberg in À Bout de Souffle, Halle Berry in Die Another Day or Maria Grazia Cucinotta in Il Postino would join Ingrid in his ultimate top three. In the end he concluded that although Seberg might beat Berry on the grounds that she had made better films, Seberg might ultimately lose to Grazia Cucinotta who really was a babe. Rob was so focused on his internal New Wave French cinema versus hot Italian actresses debate that when he came out of the loos he didn’t see the woman coming towards him and walked right into her.

  ‘I’m so sorry—’ he began, then stopped when he realised that the woman in front of him wasn’t a stranger. She was Jo.

  For several seconds neither spoke. Instead they stared at each other, at a loss for something to say. In the end Jo broke the silence. ‘Rob,’ she said quietly, ‘I was on my way to the loo.’

  ‘It was my fault,’ said Rob, making sure that his voice betrayed no flicker of emotion. ‘My mind was elsewhere. Really, there’s no need for this to be a big thing. You carry on doing what you were doing and we’ll pretend it never happened.’

  ‘How have you been?’ asked Jo.

  ‘Good, thanks.’

  ‘I’ve put my house on the market and handed in my notice at work,’ she said brightly. ‘Sean and I are moving to London at the end of next month. I don’t know what I’ll do yet – anything but what I’ve been doing for the last ten years.’

  ‘I’m pleased for you,’ said Rob. ‘Looks like everything’s turning out right.’

  ‘Not everything,’ she replied, gazing into his eyes. There was a long pause. ‘Just in case you were wondering, my book was rejected by every agent I sent it to – all ten. None had much to say beyond “This isn’t for us”, apart from a guy who called me to say he thought I had a “voice” – whatever that means.’

  ‘Write another novel,’ replied Rob. ‘They obviously think you’ve got talent.’

  ‘No,’ said Jo, firmly. ‘I’ve done with dreaming. I’m thinking about retraining – doing teaching or something. I need a fresh start.’

  ‘So you’re giving up just like that?’ asked Rob. ‘What happened to the woman who told me we all need creativity in our lives?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jo.

  There was another long silence.

  ‘Are you here with Ashley?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you’re not on your own, are you?’ she said, sounding concerned.

  ‘And why would it matter to you if I was?’ asked Rob. ‘It’s not like you’re going to ask me to join you and Sean for a drink, is it?’

  ‘Don’t be like that.’ Jo touched his arm. ‘I know you think I’ve let you down and I’m sorry, okay? But there was no other choice.’

  Rob shrugged. ‘I’m with those guys over there,’ he said waving to his friends.

  ‘Isn’t that Neil?’ asked Jo. ‘I thought you didn’t like him.’

  ‘Things change,’ said Rob.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said softly. ‘You were one of the most important people to me in the whole world, Rob. I’ve never been as close to anyone outside my family as I was to you – not even Sean. The last time I saw you I—’

  ‘Why are you saying all this when it’s just not true?’ Rob cut her short. ‘How could I be more important to you than Sean when you chose him over me? Look, you’ve made your decision and that’s fine. But it wasn’t circumstances that stopped us being friends. It was you.’

  Rob saw the hurt in her eyes and knew that his words had had the desired effect but he took no pleasure in it. It didn’t come easily to him to be hard on her. All he wanted to do was put his arms round her and tell her that everything would be okay. But he couldn’t find it in himself to forgive her for ending their friendship.

  ‘How much do you hate me?’ she asked, tears welling.

  ‘About as much as you deserve,’ said Rob succinctly. Then he brushed past her and crossed the room to his new friends.

  Man to man

  It was now twenty past nine and Rob was listening to Neil tell an anecdote about a weekend in Brighton with Justine when they had first got together. Although he was laughing in all the right places, his mind was elsewhere. His anger with Jo had evaporated, leaving intense regret. She hadn’t deserved the way he had spoken to her, but he had needed to let her know how much he felt she had let him down. He was convinced she could have worked round her feelings for him – they would have faded in time. All it would have taken was patience and their friendship could have been salvaged.

  As Neil came to the end of his story Rob decided to find her and apologise. He knew he had to accept that she hadn’t made the decision lightly to end their friendship. Fully committed to his resolution to make amends, he looked over his shoulder to scan the room for her, And something stopped him in his tracks. A fist.

  It belonged to Sean.

  And it was heading for Rob’s nose at an alarming velocity.

  Rob had no time to duck out of the way as they do in films. Neither had he then time to even contemplate how much the blow might hurt when it landed. All he could do was wait for the punch to connect.

  When Sean’s fist reached its target Rob was surprised by how much it hurt. It was a shock to discover that something as simple as a tightly packed hand could deliver a blow akin to that of a mallet. And the pain was beyond ordinary pain: it was double-strength, super-sized, and made his head feel as if its contents were fizzing like the inside of a shaken can of Coke. He couldn’t tell if he was still standing (he wasn’t), he couldn’t tell if he was bleeding (he was, profusely) and he couldn’t tell if his nose had been broken by the blow (it hadn’t, although it was quite a mess).

  Suddenly there was a lot of commotion, and he could hear Jo yelling at Sean. After a few moments he felt hands pulling him to his feet. He opened his eyes to find that he had been helped up by two of the bar’s weekend door staff, who ejected him, Sean and Jo from the premises and stood in front of the doors making sure no one could get in or out.

  Sitting on the pavement outside, Rob tried to stem the flow of blood while Jo crouched next to him with an arm round his shoulders.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. She pulled out a crumpled Kle
enex and began to clean his face.

  ‘I’m fine,’ snapped Rob. His pride was far more damaged than his nose. ‘Just leave me alone, okay?’

  ‘I know you’re angry,’ said Jo. ‘But—’

  ‘It’s just a nosebleed,’ replied Rob, and glared at Sean, who was looking on passively.

  ‘You heard him, Jo,’ said Sean, grabbing her arm. ‘He doesn’t need your help. Let’s go.’

  Jo stared at him. ‘Why are you still here? What are you? A six-year-old? You’re such an idiot, Sean. You could’ve really hurt Rob.’

  ‘That was his intention,’ murmured Rob.

  ‘This is so typical of you,’ spat Sean. ‘One minute you’re in tears because of something this loser’s said and the next—’

  ‘I was upset,’ interjected Jo, ‘but I never meant this to happen.’ She sighed heavily and began to cry. ‘Will you go, Sean? Just go and never come back.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s over.’ She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘Because of him?’

  ‘No. Because of you.’

  Without a word, Sean walked away, leaving her to cry. Rob put his arms round her and Jo scrabbled in her bag for her tobacco and lighter. Then she threw them back. ‘I’ve run out of papers,’ she said.

  ‘How about a trip to the off-licence?’ asked Rob.

  ‘You’re on,’ said Jo, and they stood up. Jo looped her arm through his and they headed along Wilbraham Road for Threshers.

  ‘How’s your nose?’ she asked. It was raining now and she had to squint to see it.

  ‘All right,’ he said, touching it gingerly. ‘It’s stopped bleeding at least.’ He turned his face side on to show her the damage. ‘Do you think it’s broken?’

  ‘How should I know?’ asked Jo. ‘I’ve never seen a broken nose. Does it feel broken?’