Life and Soul of the Party

by Mike Gayle

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ replied Melissa. She looked at Paul. ‘It was good to see you too.’

  He moved to kiss her on the cheek and I automatically felt my goodwill evaporate.

  Melissa

  By the time Billy and I decided to leave the restaurant, nearly everyone else had already gone. While Billy went to the loo I stood outside looking up at the stars.

  ‘Anything good up there?’ asked Billy emerging on to the pavement.

  ‘Not really.’

  Billy juggled his mobile phone from hand to hand as though waiting for me to make a decision.

  ‘So what next? Yours or mine?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t see a cab anywhere.’

  Billy shrugged. ‘Do you fancy walking for a bit?’

  I looked down at my feet. ‘In these shoes?’

  ‘I’ll carry you.’

  ‘You’re on.’

  ‘You think I’m joking, don’t you? Well I’m not.’ Billy picked me up and ignoring my screams of laughter started walking towards Deansgate.

  Vicky

  Chris and I were in a black cab on our way back home.

  ‘Tonight was good, wasn’t it?’ said Chris. ‘Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.’

  ‘Nearly everyone.’

  Chris nodded. ‘You mean Melissa?’

  ‘She put on a brave face but I could tell she was miserable. I hate the way things are. I hate that I don’t see Paul any more. I hate that Melissa’s got so much pain in her life. I hate that Laura’s gone and that Cooper’s on his own. Why can’t things just stay the same? Why does everything have to turn upside down?’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ said Chris. ‘We’re proof of that, aren’t we? Ten years under our belt. We’re good. We haven’t got any worries.’

  Now was my chance. ‘I think I might be pregnant.’

  There was a long silence while I waited for his reaction.

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, is it definite?’

  ‘I’m only a little bit late. It’s probably nothing.’

  ‘Is that what you really think?’

  ‘No. I don’t know why I feel like I am, I just do. I tried to take the test earlier tonight but I couldn’t do it. The stuff’s in the bathroom at home. You haven’t changed your mind about another baby, have you?’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘It’s just a bit of a shock that’s all.’

  I snuggled closer to him.

  ‘It’s okay to admit to not being fine, Chris. It’s okay to feel helpless sometimes.’

  ‘I know. I never thought I wanted more than one kid. I thought I’d try fatherhood, tick it off the list and then be happy with my lot. And when William came along I couldn’t imagine loving another child as much as I love him. But I don’t want William to grow up alone. I want him to have someone in his life who will always be connected to him. Someone he can always turn to when you and I aren’t around.’ He kissed the top of my head. ‘Baby or no baby, I couldn’t possibly love you more than I do right now.’

  Arriving home, hand in hand we headed upstairs and as I took the test in the bathroom Chris waited outside. Emerging moments later with the test in my hand we stood wrapped in each other’s arms waiting for the result to appear. I could barely breath as I waited, wishing, hoping, praying for the thin blue line to appear that would change our futures forever. And as it slowly became clear that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, that the blue line on the test really was real, I felt so completely and utterly relieved that I just sat down right where I’d been standing, closed my eyes and sobbed my heart out.

  Hannah

  ‘I really enjoyed tonight,’ I said as, standing in the kitchen, Paul opened the fridge door and pulled out a bottle of Red Stripe. ‘Everyone was really nice to me and the food was fantastic.’

  ‘You’re not wrong about the food,’ he replied. ‘That dessert you had was amazing,’ He rummaged in the cutlery drawer for a bottle opener. ‘And it was good to see everyone on such really good form.’

  ‘Apart from Melissa.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Oh come on, Paul. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the look on her face when we walked in tonight? She looked distraught.’

  Paul opened his beer and took a sip. ‘I doubt it.’

  I stared at Paul. I couldn’t believe he was being so wilfully ignorant when it came to Melissa. I couldn’t believe that he was going to make me spell it out: if we were going to work as a couple then he had to find a way to close the door on his past so that I wouldn’t have to spend every waking moment fearing he was going to walk back through it.

  ‘You know she’s still in love with you, don’t you? She’s never completely got over you.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Do you still have feelings for her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘None at all?’

  ‘Not in the way you mean. Melissa and I are friends. Nothing more. To be truthful I’m actually not even sure we are friends any more. We barely said a word to each other tonight. I’ve moved on. She’s moved on. End of story.’

  ‘I’m not attacking you.’ I made a bid to bring the conversation back from the edge of an argument. ‘It would be understandable if you did have feelings for her.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’ Paul set the bottle down on the kitchen counter and put his arms around me. ‘Melissa’s part of my past. I can’t change my history any more than you can change yours. But right now I love you. And I know that us having a baby is the best thing that has ever happened to me.’

  I wanted to believe his words. If I could I would finally be able to relax and enjoy what we had instead of fearing from moment to moment that something terrible was about to happen.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m here with you for good.’ Paul lifted up my chin.

  ‘I know you are.’

  ‘So you trust me?’

  I couldn’t bear to voice my affirmation when so many doubts remained in my mind so I simply nodded.

  ‘I’m sorry, Paul, I really don’t know what’s got into me. I know we’re supposed to be seeing my friends tomorrow night but let’s cancel, shall we? Let’s stay home and not see anyone before Monday. I’m tired of sharing you with other people. I want to be selfish. I want to feel like you’re mine and nobody else’s.’

  ‘You’re worrying about nothing.’ He kissed me gently on the forehead. ‘I am yours and nobody else’s.’

  ‘Then prove it by promising that you’ll never see or speak to Melissa ever again. I know I’m asking a lot. I know you two have a history. I know you’re friends. But every time I see the look on her face when she’s in your presence, it tears me up inside. And I don’t want to feel like that for the rest of my life, Paul.’ I watched his face for any sign that my words had hit home but his features were blank, unmoved. I almost dared not to breathe until he spoke.

  ‘Okay, if you want it you’ve got it. If it’s what you want I promise I won’t see or talk to Melissa again.’

  ‘It is what I want,’ I replied.

  ‘Then it’s yours.’

  ‘This is a new beginning for us. A new start. No baggage. No history. Just me, you and our baby.’

  Melissa

  Much to my relief Billy put me down after less than twenty feet and we made our way hand-in-hand through the streets towards the taxi rank. It was nice being in town this late at night watching groups of glammed-up boys and girls on their way to the nearest bar or club.

  ‘So is it still the end of the month that you’ve got to be out by?’ asked Billy as we walked past a group of indie girls laughing and joking as they waited in the queue outside 42nd Street.

  ‘With the way things are with Susie? I was thinking more like the end of next week. Vicky has insisted that I stay with her and Chris but I can’t do to that to them, they’ve got William to look after. I know th
at this is a bit mean but I’m guessing with Laura gone Cooper might be up for having a house guest for a while.’

  Billy was quiet for a few moments. ‘What about me?’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Why don’t you stay at mine?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  ‘I’ll do whatever you want me to do.’

  He meant it too. ‘Look, Billy, it’s lovely of you to offer but you know . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please don’t make me spell it out?’

  ‘But I need you to,’ he replied. ‘I need to know why.’

  I looked into his eyes and could see that he genuinely believed there was no good reason for me not to say yes. And right there on the spot I wished that I had Billy’s confidence in us. I wished that I shared his confidence in me.

  ‘I can’t move in with you because I’ll mess things up like I usually do.’

  ‘You think I’m trying to rush things, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, aren’t you?’

  ‘Look, I’m not trying to overwhelm or confuse you or anything like that. I just want you to know how serious I am about you – about us. That’s not a crime, is it?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I stumbled, unable to find the right words, ‘These past few months have been amazing, Billy, but that’s all they’ve been . . . a few amazing months.’ I willed myself to continue, fearing that I might be about to hurt him. ‘Paul really broke my heart you know, Billy. He broke it and there were times when I thought it would never recover.’ I closed my eyes and exhaled. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be, it was something I needed to hear. But you seem to be forgetting that I’m not Paul. With my hand on my heart, Mel, I promise you I’d never hurt you in a million years. And what I’m really trying to say to you is this: I don’t really want you to move into mine – I want us to look for a place for the two of us to live together. Not flatmates or housemates. Just you, me and . . . a cat.’

  ‘A cat?’

  ‘Of course we’d get a cat. We’d get a cat and we’d call him something like . . . I don’t know . . . Charlie. And the place we’d get would be in Chorlton and okay . . . maybe it wouldn’t be the biggest place in the world but it would be ours and we wouldn’t have to share it with teddy-bear-collecting freaks or even Seb and Brian and their film-poster collection.’

  Listening to him paint this picture of the future made me realise that I didn’t want to view a million and one unsuitable flats just to find a half-decent room in one. And I didn’t want to have to share a flat with complete strangers. What I wanted was a life. A proper life. With someone I loved and who loved me right back. So without wasting another moment I found myself saying yes.

  Three Weeks Later

  Melissa and Billy’s

  House-Warming

  Party

  September 2006

  Melissa

  It had been a long road that Billy and I had had to travel in order to make it to the moment when we could finally throw a party of our own. On the night of Chris and Vicky’s anniversary we’d gone back to mine. Still feeling bad about my earlier argument with Creepy Susie I asked Billy to go and make us both a cup of tea while I knocked on her door and apologised to her again for the way that I’d spoken to her earlier.

  Susie’s eyes lit up when I told her the news. She got so carried away with the romance of it all that she even told me to forget everything she’d said earlier and take as long as I needed to find a place of my own. I promised Billy and I would start looking first thing in the morning and that hopefully it wouldn’t take too long.

  The very next day Billy and I started flat hunting and within a week we’d found a one-bedroom flat five minutes from my old place that we could just about afford. It was in a Victorian house conversion and as flats went it wasn’t exactly huge but it was clean, bright and well maintained and more importantly, it was going to be ours. On the morning that we were supposed to drop off our deposit with the letting agent, however, they called with some story about a mix-up that had resulted in another couple also being shown ‘our’ flat. According to the agent this other couple were prepared to pay a hundred and fifty pounds a month more than we were! At first Billy wanted to match the offer because he knew that we’d never find a flat as nice as this one again but I hated being held to ransom and persuaded him that the best thing to do was to tell the agents what they could do with their ‘accidental mix-up’ and carry on looking.

  A week later, still with no success, we decided to drown our sorrows and take ourselves off for a night of good food and drinking. Starting at Neelams with a quick curry we gradually gravitated towards Blue-Bar where we bumped into Billy’s sister Nadine. Nadine was out with Karen, an old university friend, and while we were talking it came out that Karen was a lawyer, who had just got a promotion that would involve her being relocated to Singapore for six months. She was worried about her cat because she couldn’t take it with her and asked us if we had any trustworthy friends who wouldn’t mind baby-sitting a cat in return for cheap rent in a nice house. Before she had even finished her sentence we’d practically jumped down her throat and begged her to let us have it.

  The house was much more impressive than the flat we’d lost out on. It was a beautiful three-bedroom Edwardian terrace on a great road just opposite Chorlton Park. The ceilings in all the downstairs room were really high and the windows so large that they flooded the front sitting room in light. Once we’d had the guided tour, Karen took us out to the utility room at the back of the house and introduced us to Thomas, her three-year-old Chartreux, who was lying in a fur-lined basket on top of the washing machine. He was, as cats went, pretty ordinary looking, with light grey fur, green eyes and a low-slung stomach. Karen obviously adored him so Billy and I tried our best to adore him too but he didn’t appear all that interested in us. I think this gave Karen the reassurance she needed that whilst most cats might be fickle, she was undoubtedly number one in Thomas’s heart. Satisfied with our cat-keeping capabilities she handed us a set of keys and asked us if we had any questions. I was about to say no, when Billy piped up, ‘I know it’s a bit cheeky but would it be okay if we throw a party here?’

  For a moment I thought that Karen was going to change her mind and throw us out on the spot but she just laughed and told Billy she had thrown more parties here than she cared to remember and that as long as nothing got stolen, the place didn’t get wrecked and Thomas was okay we could do whatever we liked.

  We moved in the next day. And for that short time I was happier than I ever thought might be possible. Everything was going right for me. At long last I’d managed to put the past behind me and the party, mine and Billy’s party, was supposed to be the icing on the cake, a celebration of everything we were and everything we hoped to be. But then while I was out getting things for the party, I took the phone call from Chris telling me that Paul had died and after that nothing was ever quite the same again.

  Paul’s Funeral

  September 2006

  Chris

  It was just after nine in the morning and I was sitting at the dining table struggling to finish the eulogy that I was supposed to be delivering in a few hours at Paul’s funeral service. Everything I wanted to say sounded insincere and cliched the second I’d written it down. It was as if the very act of picking up a pen rendered me incapable of writing a sentence without resorting to something that I’d seen in a film or watched on a soap opera. What I really wanted was to say something from the heart – something that would do justice to the memory of my friend. But nothing I could ever hope to write could achieve this most impossible of tasks.

  I’d been at work when I got the call from Hannah’s mother.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I was wondering whether I might be able to speak to a Mr Christopher Cooper?’

  My first thought was that I was being cold-called by one of those dodgy companies that are always flogging replacement mobile han
dsets. I seemed to get a dozen or so of these kinds of calls a week and each one only served to make me wish that I had an air horn at the ready so I could blast it down the phone. I was a split second away from cutting her off altogether when she told me she was calling with regard to ‘a Mr Paul Rogers’ and that was when I finally realised that the woman’s voice (grave, middle-aged and well spoken) was unlike that of any cold-caller I’d ever encountered.

  She told me she was Hannah’s mother and was calling on her daughter’s behalf, then went on to say — and these were the exact words she used – that she had ‘some rather awful news’. My first thought was that something had happened with Paul and Hannah’s baby. The last time I’d seen Paul he’d told me that Hannah’s due date was only a few weeks away. Maybe there had been some kind of complication and Hannah was in hospital. With Vicky being pregnant too the thought that something bad might have happened to Paul and Hannah’s unborn child made me feel doubly sick to my stomach. I braced myself for the ‘awful news’.

  ‘It’s about your friend Paul. I’m sorry to have to say that he was involved in a car crash on the south-bound carriageway of the M6. It happened just after eight this morning. A lorry crossed the central reservation. Paul was one of six fatalities.’

  Everything after this point was a blur. After I’d put down the phone I remember colleagues gathering round me asking what had happened. All I could say was: ‘It’s my friend. He’s gone.’ Helping hands ushered me into the corridor. A cup of ice-cold water from the dispenser was pushed in my hand. ‘Drink it and you’ll feel better.’ Even at the time I thought that that was asking a lot of a simple paper cup of water but I did as instructed. And while it didn’t make me feel better this simple act brought me to my senses enough to realise that it was up to me to call the others and let them know what had happened. And Melissa would be the first person that I would call.

  That was less than a week ago and now here I was trying to write my best friend’s eulogy. Sensing that I was no longer alone I looked up to see Vicky standing in the doorway of the living room wearing a long black dress. She looked beautiful – her face, her smile, everything about her — just too perfect for words.