by Andy Jones
‘And I thought you were bored.’
‘Well, yeah, sort of, but it’s not my ticket, is it?’
‘The reason I’m using parking meters in Islington, Tom, is because that’s where I live. But the bloody car only has a bloody permit for where you live.’
‘Right, I hadn’t th—’
‘It’s a huge pain in the arse.’
‘Sure.’
‘And I’ve spent considerably more than sixty pounds parking my own car outside my own flat for the last four months.’
‘Actually, it’s our car.’
‘. . .’
This line of reasoning is too ridiculous to pursue. A custody battle for a car. Visitation rights. Will the car develop a complex?
‘Listen,’ I say, ‘forget the fine, I’ll pay it. I mean, it’s only sixty quid, right?’
‘Great. Thank you.’
‘No, no, it’s nothing, I’m sorry for bugging you, it’s just, you know . . . awkward.’
‘Listen, I really do have to get on, so unless there’s anything else.’
‘Well, actually, it’s just . . . maybe if you could let me know when you’re planning on taking the car.’
‘Oh for God’s sake.’
‘Or even just let me know when you’ve taken it?’
‘Fine, I’ll let you know. Shall I write, or call? Maybe we’ll draw up a rota?’
‘A text would be fine.’
‘Fine,’ says Sadie. ‘I’ll text.’
‘Great, thanks. Well, it was good talking to y—’
Click.
So much for settled dust.
Chapter Eight
‘That puts you on . . . exactly ninety,’ says Doug. ‘You’re only eleven behind, lad. There’s still time.’
I’d let Douglas win, if I was better than him. But the old bugger doesn’t need the help. His clubs are older than I am, scuffed and with worn grips, but it doesn’t seem to prevent them from driving a golf ball two hundred and fifty metres in a straight line. My downstairs neighbour will be seventy-two on his next birthday, but he’s as healthy as a goat, and rotates smoothly about hip and shoulder as he tees off on the fifteenth hole. I’m beginning to flag, but Doug looks like he could keep this up all day long.
‘Ach, dipped a bit early,’ he says in his pleasant Ulster burr as the ball rolls onto the edge of the green.
‘Shot,’ I tell him as I line up my own ball.
‘Wee flutter on the side?’ he says.
‘Sod off, Doug, if I lose another I’ll have to give you my car keys.’
‘Fat lot o’ use they’d be when the motor’s never here.’
‘Thanks for driving, by the way. Do I owe you for petrol?’
‘I may be a pensioner but I’m no . . . Ah, will you look at that,’ Doug says as my ball swerves off into the trees. ‘Hooked it again.’
‘Bastard clubs.’
‘A bad workman . . .’ says Doug, and we set off to find my ball and sink his.
‘So you and that wee lassie courting now?’
‘Holly? No, we’re just . . . you know.’
Doug laughs. ‘Aye, reckon I do, Thomas. I dunny ken when they invented sound proofing, but I’d hazard a guess it was after they built our flats, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Sorry.’
‘I was a weetchil once too, you know.’
‘A what?’
‘A youngster, lad. Chasing the girls and up to tae herry.’
I file herry away for later enquiry. ‘So,’ I ask him, ‘how’s Eileen?’
‘A gentleman never tells,’ says Doug.
‘Good, then?’
‘Wants me to take her away for the bank holiday weekend,’ he says. ‘Lyme Regis.’
‘You old devil.’
‘Not so much of the auld,’ he says, winking.
Doug was widowed around five years ago, about two years before I moved in. There were many photographs of Doug’s wife, Mary, in his flat, and after introducing myself to my new neighbour it took me less than five minutes – ‘I see you’re married’ – to lodge my foot in my mouth. Philosophical and unabashed in his grief, Doug put the kettle on and brought out a big tin of biscuits. Recently retired, he and Mary had barely crossed off half a dozen items from the long list of things planned for their twilight years when Mary was diagnosed with late-stage leukaemia. Her prognosis was good, however, and she was responding well to therapy. And then one Wednesday morning in November, Doug came home from the butcher’s to find Mary dead in her bed, her glasses still on her nose and an unfinished book splayed open on her chest. I told him about Mum’s breast cancer, and Doug brought out the whisky. In the years since, we have become firm friends, and while the photos of Mary remain on his walls and shelves, Douglas has moved on, joining a senior citizens’ cinema club, a bridge club, a salsa class and an allotment collective. He gets out more than I do.
‘Went in here, didn’t it?’ says Doug, hacking at the undergrowth with a five iron.
‘You’ve better eyes than me, if it did.’
‘Now look at this,’ says Doug, plucking a delicate yellow flower. ‘Primrose.’ And he bites the head off the flower and chews.
‘Have you lost your marbles?’
‘’s a herb,’ he says, chewing a leaf. ‘Try it.’
‘I’ll pass. Are you sure?’
‘Aye. Look, there’s bings o’ the stuff,’ he says, pulling up great handfuls of the yellow plant. ‘Makes guid tea. Can use it in salads too.’
‘Give over.’
Doug laughs. ‘You’ve nae sense of adventure, lad. What you doing thenicht?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Eileen’s popping over tae watch Strictly. Double bill, apparently. She always asks after you. Come down and say hello. I’ll make you a primrose omelette.’
Doug’s had several ‘girlfriends’ in the last few years, but Eileen has been a steady feature for the past few months. She’s glamorous, funny and has a good line in limericks.
‘I might just do that,’ I say in response to Doug’s invitation.
And the sad thing is, I probably will.
I see my hairdresser for thirty minutes about once every three weeks. In what must amount to a three- or four-hour conversation in instalments, we have discussed my break-up with Sadie and subsequent lack of romantic progress, plus Alyson’s on-off relationship with a ‘body artist’ called Bambi, who it took me three haircuts to ascertain was a human male.
‘Out tonight?’ asks Alyson’s reflection.
‘Might watch Strictly with the old man that lives downstairs,’ I say, and Alyson laughs. ‘How about you?’
Alyson shakes her head. ‘Saving up for Ibiza.’
‘You and Bambi?’
She gives me a thumbs down, shakes her head. ‘Girls’ holiday.’
Alyson is more interesting than pretty. Her blonde hair is cut in an asymmetric bob with dyed-black tips that accentuate her sharp features; she has a silver stud in her top lip, one in her tongue, another in her belly button. There are Celtic swirlings at the small of her back, a tattooed twist of thorns around her right ankle, a daisy on the inside of her left wrist. And I can’t help imagining how much more ink and jewellery she might reveal on the beach in Ibiza.
Bianca wants to go on holiday with her friends this summer – to some party island made notorious in a TV reality show called Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents. Needless to say, Dad is having none of it, and I have found myself – once again – in the middle of an explosive father-and-daughter battle of wills. I swear my phone feels an ounce heavier under the weight of accumulated text messages and voicemails. Bianca’s texts tend to be pithy, expletive-laden assessments of Dad’s character, judgement and parentage. Dad’s voicemails are rambling re-enactments and analyses of the latest flare-up. I’m conflicted. Bianca is seventeen now, old enough to smoke, drive a car, start a family. Although it would be a tragedy if she exercised this last option on the island of Kavos with a scaffolder from Margate with more tatto
os than IQ points. And then there’s the drink; she’ll be consuming plenty of it this summer whether she’s home or abroad, but while she’s within a taxi drive of Dad, it feels – illusory or not – as if my baby sister is less likely to come to serious harm. But, as Bianca continues to point out in a relentless barrage of SMSs, she is not a baby anymore. In her position, I’d take her side. And in Dad’s I’d take his – but, and here’s the rub, I think I’d be wrong. Bianca is smarter than she likes to admit, she works hard and she deserves a holiday. Let her make some mistakes, laugh about them and learn from them. I’m going home in a couple of weeks for Dad’s birthday, and I’ll do my best to make Bianca’s case. I’m looking forward to getting between Bea and Dad about as much as I’m looking forward to losing my hair. But all of these things are in my blood, so I guess it’s unavoidable.
‘You going anywhere this summer?’ Alyson asks.
I shake my head. Last summer I went to Palma with Sadie, and look where that got me. This summer, I’m going nowhere with no one. It makes me wonder, not for the first – or the ninth – time, about the wisdom of this whole bet I have with El. Not that I don’t enjoy spending time in the company of attractive ladies, and not that there’s anything wrong with enjoying a degree of sexual freedom. But you can have too much of a good thing, as they say, and too much freedom can get pretty damn lonely.
A shampoo and haircut costs thirty-five quid, and I tell Alyson to keep the change from two twenties.
‘For the holiday fund,’ I say, and inwardly cringe at how patronising I sound. ‘Or you could blow it on a bottle of wine,’ I add, attempting to smooth over the clumsy gambit.
‘Maybe a nice rosé?’ says Alyson with a small laugh. She takes a five from the till and folds it into her apron. ‘Cheers.’
I almost turn to the door, but there’s a coyness to Alyson’s demeanour today that stops me. Encourages me. It’s been a long week, it’s Saturday night, and in the absence of someone to hold hands with, I’ll take any company I can get.
‘You know,’ I say, ‘seeing as how we’re neither of us doing much tonight . . .’
Alyson bites her lip and her eyes widen ever so slightly. An expression of dread maybe.
‘I thought maybe we could . . .’ My cheeks begin to redden, but there’s no turning back. I’m slow-motion skidding towards a brick wall and my wheels are locked.
‘. . . have that bottle of rosé . . .’
Alyson’s expression becomes the next best thing to a wince. Braced for impact.
‘. . . together?’
Bang.
Behind me, someone coughs.
Alyson glances past my right shoulder. I follow her gaze to where another girl is sweeping the floor. She smiles at me and averts her eyes towards the hair clippings at her feet.
I turn back to Alyson, who looks like she’s contemplating a particularly complex mathematical problem – eyebrows pulled together, mouth twisted to one side, fingers fidgeting with the pocket of her apron.
‘There’s a new bar in Clapham North?’ I say. ‘They do cocktails.’
The sweeper coughs again, not really disguising a snigger.
‘If you like, I could swing by here arou—’
‘I think maybe I’ll just stay in,’ says Alyson.
‘Sure, fine, okay then,’ I say, taking a sidestep towards the door. ‘Cool.’
‘Save up,’ says Alyson.
‘’course,’ I say, reaching for the door handle. ‘Ibiza.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Nice one. No worries. Have a good . . . you know, night. See you soon.’
The doorbell ding-a-ling-a-lings behind me, but not loud enough to cover the sound of laughter.
‘Now that,’ says Eileen, ‘is a well-made man.’
We’re sitting three abreast on the sofa, eating off our knees in front of Strictly. A TV weather girl, visibly awkward in her split-to-the-hip ballgown, stands beside the male professional – a Portuguese hunk with perfect teeth, hair like midnight and a ridged torso of dark skin and sharp angles.
‘Aye,’ says Doug, flicking a glance in my direction.
We’ve had variations on the theme with every dance: Eileen appraising the various male dancers’ legs, chests, bums, rhythm. I interject the occasional comment on the ladies, just to redress the balance, but when it comes to objectifying the opposite sex, I’m not in the same league as Eileen.
‘Do you suppose he shaves his chest?’ she says, before devouring a forkful of primrose omelette. ‘Call me old-fashioned, but I like a bit of hair on a man. Something to run my fingers through. Mind you, I’m not complaining; that is a very well-made man.’
Doug has never been particularly garrulous, but he seems particularly coy tonight. In a strange kind of generational role reversal, I feel like a parent in the company of a couple of teenage sweethearts. Eileen has to lean forwards in order to look around me and wink at Doug or, on a couple of occasions, squeeze his knee.
‘Oh, they’re doing a tango,’ she says, leaning forwards again. ‘I do love a good tango.’ And here she raises her eyebrows at Douglas. ‘The dance of passion.’
‘Lovely omelette,’ I say to Doug.
‘Aye,’ says Doug.
On screen the lights rise, picking out a set styled after an old-fashioned piano bar. The two dancers take their positions, the music starts and the weather girl pirouettes into the professional’s arms.
‘Oh, take me away,’ coos Eileen.
I’m thinking the same thing.
The dancers finish their routine, face the judges and receive their scores – two sixes and an extravagant seven from the excitable camp one. Next up are a former footballer and an Eastern European pro with legs like a sprinter and eyes like a killer. In their video montage, the couple tell us they will be performing the salsa, and we see them go through the standard rigmarole of training, falling over, arguing and so on.
‘Don’t you do a salsa class?’ I say to Doug.
‘He does,’ says Eileen, snapping her fingers like castanets. ‘And he’s got very agile hips.’
Doug clears his throat.
‘Is this true?’ I ask. ‘Douglas McSnakehips?’
‘I’ll Douglas McKick your backside in a minute, lad.’
Eileen laughs as if Doug is joking.
The dancers take to the stage. Her dressed like a prostitute; him too, for that matter.
‘Good grief,’ says Eileen. ‘Those trousers don’t leave much to the imagination, do they?’
I check my watch and see that we’re a little over thirty minutes into a two-hour double bill. Doug and I reach for the wine simultaneously, our hands touch and recoil from each other, again with perfect synchronicity.
‘Cha-cha-cha!’ says Eileen.
The wine is practically empty, so I squeeze myself out from between Doug and Eileen.
‘I’ll go and open another bottle,’ I tell him.
‘Aye,’ says Doug.
Chapter Nine
‘Nothn in two weeks!’
It’s the last day of May, four weeks since my close encounter with Kaz. And while it’s been a busy month in the office, things have slowed down considerably in the bedroom. Just over a fortnight ago, there was a thing with Emma, the script supervisor on a Toilet Duck commercial, which delighted El (‘Toilet Fuck!’) when I told him. Today, though, I have nothing to report.
My recollection of my most recent conquest, however, makes me cringe, and not simply on account of the product that brought us together. Lying in bed in the small hours, Emma asked about my plans for the approaching summer – an innocent enquiry probably, but I answered evasively and not entirely honestly. Emma’s job, however, is to spot continuity errors, and the look on her face when she spotted mine made me feel about two feet tall.
At least I didn’t sleep with Holly again. I know this isn’t something for which I deserve a certificate of achievement or a medal of abstention, but you take your consolations where you find them. Holly was the runner o
n the Toilet Duck shoot, and while she maintained a professional distance throughout the day, she closed that gap at the wrap party. It had been two weeks since our last encounter, and I’d gone out of my way to be, well, out of the way. The third or fourth time Holly sidled up to me, standing close enough that I could feel the heat of her breast pressed against my arm, I felt my resolve weakening and took defensive measures. I flirted with Emma. Short of being brutally explicit, it was the least awkward way I could conceive of to reinforce a point already made. Getting Emma into bed was not my objective, but merely a fortuitous side effect. My intentions were true. Noble, even. ‘Enjoy your summer,’ Emma said when she left the following morning, but when I went to kiss her goodbye, she twisted her face to the side.
‘Not a single soltry fuck. You’re fuckig slipping, mate,’ says El at a volume that might be acceptable in a noisy pub, but is a touch unnecessary for a quiet restaurant.
From where I’m sitting, with my back to the kitchen, I can’t see Jiang – but I can sense him wincing.
‘Try some of this,’ I say, spooning Szechuan chicken onto El’s plate.
In the five months since Christmas – since El’s bet – my friend’s tics have grown more frequent and more pronounced. His legs bounce constantly as if he’s tapping his feet to music, and the motion, transmitted through his trunk, makes his head wobble. His limbs spasm and jerk with increased regularity. Walking is awkward, shaving perilous, eating and drinking messy. Some weeks back, I gave Jiang a stack of plastic pint glasses for our beer. El holds his with two hands.
‘More thn’anythin, it disappoints me. I live vica. . . varoious. . . whassa word?’
‘Vicariously?’
So far tonight we’ve drunk less than a half a glass of beer each, but El’s speech is slurred nevertheless – simply one more symptom of his progressing Huntington’s.
‘Yeah, through you,’ says El. ‘So where’s the fun for me in you not fuckig? No fucks no fun. No fuckig fun whatsever.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to disap—’
El turns around in his chair and shouts across the restaurant. ‘Jiang! Jiang, have you got a’ – his fingers dance over an invisible keyboard – ‘calclator?’