Love Byte

by David Atkinson

  I was still very uncomfortable and reluctant to go along with the whole thing. I didn’t feel ready. I’d probably never feel ready and knowing Lindsay she would know that as well. In the end I had arranged for Pauline to come over later and look after Amy, and she had agreed to do the same tomorrow as well. I still wasn’t convinced I’d go into town and risk humiliation, but I had given myself the option.

  I would have been lost without Pauline. I had made very little demands of her in the way of babysitting at the weekends as I had hardly been out since Lindsay died. Pauline had been encouraging me to get back some kind of social life, so was delighted with this turn of events and had not even questioned what I was doing – in fact if anything she appeared to be a little too eager, and that made me feel even more guilty.

  Earlier I had watched Amy clambering over a big soft Tyrannosaurus Rex in the under fours soft-play section, and wondered about the marketing which had led us to transform the most ferocious killing machine that ever walked on land into a happy smiley climbing frame for toddlers.

  Later, after we got back to the flat, Amy wanted to watch a Barney DVD, probably inspired by the Tyrannosaurus Rex from soft-play. I switched on the flat-screen TV built into the wall of my open-plan living-dining area. It had become a worry watching Barney ever since Amy overheard me saying to Pauline that in my opinion Barney was very camp. Pauline wasn’t sure what I meant so I said, too loudly unfortunately, that I thought Barney was ‘a poof’. Ever since then, whenever Amy noticed Barney she said in a very loud voice, ‘He’s a poof.’ However, it made no difference to her liking the DVDs.

  After Amy was settled I made myself another coffee on the fancy coffee machine that came with the rented apartment. This was my fourth already, and I wouldn’t sleep that night if I wasn’t careful. Somewhere between my fourth and fifth coffee I decided to go to the Kitch bar; I blamed my sudden burst of decisiveness on the caffeine rush.

  Before Pauline arrived I tried to tidy up the apartment. If I didn’t she would spend the evening cleaning. It was a large apartment and I didn’t know where to start. One of the more irrational things I did when Lindsay died was put our house up for sale. I couldn’t stand being there; it was the family home we’d bought together and we were no longer a family in my eyes. Obviously I now realized that Amy and I were a family, but at the time I wasn’t thinking clearly. Remarkably, I got an offer close to the asking price in the first week of the house being on the market and we moved out three months later. I rented a penthouse apartment in a part of Edinburgh called Newhaven. Most of the windows had wonderful views of the sea – well, I called it the sea, technically it was actually part of the Firth of Forth. To me a river was where you can see the other side, and here the other side was so far away it felt like the sea, so I called it the sea and more importantly Amy called it the sea.

  The rent was a bargain at only £800 a month. The developer was unable to sell the apartments and decided to let them out at cheap rates to at least cover some of his costs, while he waited for the housing market to recover.

  Since then, however, house prices had plunged even further, so selling up for me had turned out be a great financial decision if not a great emotional one. As well as having wonderful views, the apartment (ex-show apartment) was fully furnished with contemporary fittings and had the benefit of only being a ten-minute walk from Pauline’s flat. Pauline had initially moaned the face off me for selling our lovely semi-detached home, but now hardly mentioned it.

  One day I would buy a nice house with a garden for Amy but I was in no hurry and for the time being, I had extended the lease for a further six months. Instead of a garden we were one minute from the beach.

  Pauline arrived just before 5 p.m. and joined us for dinner. Well, joined was actually an inaccurate description, she arrived and made dinner. I didn’t know she was coming and my plan was to have beans on toast with Amy – Amy loved beans on toast – with the little sausages. Unfortunately I liked the little sausages too and we usually ended up having a fight over who got the last one.

  Pauline decided that we were going to have salmon, new potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower. (I didn’t even know we had any salmon – it was buried at the back of the freezer behind a box of Cornettos. I didn’t know we had Cornettos either, otherwise I would have scoffed them by now.)

  We all sat at the table, and Pauline pulled Amy’s high chair close to the table so she would feel part of everything. Pauline remarked, ‘Amy’s high chair is very clean.’

  I nodded innocently. ‘Yeah, I washed it all down a couple of days ago.’

  Pauline regarded me suspiciously. The idea of me cleaning a high chair obviously didn’t sit right in her mind but she let it go.

  The real reason the high chair was so clean was that Amy usually sat on the couch next to me and ate her dinner watching TV. She seemed to enjoy sitting in her high chair at the table, so I would need to do that more often.

  As we ate, Pauline chatted constantly; she hated silence and her conversation would jump subjects seemingly randomly and was hard to follow at times.

  One minute she would be saying, ‘So I said to Mrs Collins – she lives across the road from me – that I really should think about getting another car. I know I’ve got my bus pass and everything, but dragging back all the bags from Asda on the bus is hard work so I usually get a taxi. . . .’ The next second she would move seamlessly into, ‘I think it’s about time the government started doing something about all the unemployed kids that hang around all day doing nothing. . . .’

  Amy and I finished eating about the same time and I noticed Pauline studying our plates. We had both eaten the salmon and the new potatoes, but we had both left the broccoli and cauliflower untouched. Pauline didn’t say anything as she cleared away the plates. I know she wanted to, but she didn’t.

  I quickly showered, changed and headed out. Amy was happy when Pauline was there and I managed to sneak out without any drama. Sometimes Amy could be a nightmare when I left to go anywhere, depending on her mood. She used to cry whenever anyone left the flat, she even used to scream when the Tesco Online Shopping delivery man left and he was only in for less than two minutes.

  I left them eating Cornettos and watching Justine’s House. When Justine’s House normally came on, Amy wanted to throw the cushions on the floor and bounce on the couch. When Pauline was there she was content to simply sit beside her and watch it. I needed to think about that; maybe that was the trick. I usually got bored after two or three minutes and had to go and do something else.

  I had spun Pauline a line about going out for a few drinks with work colleagues and although I don’t think she was completely convinced (as this was something I hadn’t done for ages) she gave me the benefit of the doubt. As I had also drafted her in again for the Saturday evening I was pushing my luck, especially as I had said that on the Saturday I was meeting Jamie for a few beers. I hadn’t met up with Jamie for drinks since Lindsay’s death, so this was probably as unlikely a scenario in her head. Again to her credit she didn’t question me about it. Pauline was an excellent interrogator when she wanted to be – the Nazis or Spanish Inquisition would have loved her.

  I caught a bus into town and by 7 p.m. I had managed to blag the end bar stool in Kitch’s bar as per my wife’s instructions, and sat nursing a glass of wine.

  As I sipped from the glass I became aware that I was nervous. I hadn’t expected to be. I was very much a reluctant player in my wife’s little tableaux, but the combination of being out in a social environment and waiting to see if anyone showed up had combined to get my adrenaline going.

  I had been a touch extravagant and ordered a bottle of wine, which was sitting in a bucket filled with ice perched precariously on the bar. I faced the likely prospect of having to drink the whole bottle myself.

  The pub was warm and I could feel the occasional rivulet of sweat trickle down my side. I hadn’t expect
ed so many people to be in the pub at this time, but it was probably the Friday after-work regulars. Most of the other stools at the bar were filled and I was perched on the last one at the end of the forty-foot long piece of polished mahogany. I had reserved the remaining black-and-chrome bar chair just in case anyone showed up. If more than one turned up they would have to get their own chair. A number of people had tried to prise it away from me, asking if anyone was sitting there, or if it was taken.

  I felt and probably looked uncomfortable situated at the end of a row of platinum blondes who were chatting inanely and loudly about some celebrity who was pregnant with their brother’s baby. The nearest of the blondes occasionally glanced my way and smiled sympathetically. I thought initially that she might be one of my ‘prospective dates’, especially after she smiled at me, but given she appeared part of the platinum party I reckoned not. The overwhelming combination of their perfume and the wine was making my head swim.

  I still felt guilty leaving Pauline on babysitting duty, but I couldn’t exactly tell her I was sitting in a bar waiting for a troop of ladies to turn up, all pre-arranged by her dead daughter months ago. Hell, it didn’t even make sense in my own head let alone trying to explain it to someone else.

  I had yet to work out the best way of dealing with that, but knew I would need to tell Pauline something sooner or later; knowing me, it would probably be later.

  As I was mulling over the Pauline-Lindsay dilemma in my head, I noticed a girl standing uncertainly at the door. A number of young and not so young ladies had come into the bar and looked around for their friends while I’d been sitting there, and all of them had smiled and walked over to some group or other. This one remained standing uncertainly glancing nervously around the pub. I looked at the torn scrap of paper that I’d written a list of names onto. Jackie, Joan, Ellen and Anne. If this was one of them – I appraised her quickly – she looked like a Jackie. Her hair was dirty blonde, and by that I don’t mean it was unwashed, well, I didn’t know if she’d washed her hair or not, but the colour was dirty blonde. I was babbling nervously inside my own head. I’d end up being committed if that continued. She glanced over my way and I suddenly pretended that the scrap of paper in my hand was the most interesting piece of literature I had ever read.

  When I glanced up from my great read, she was walking over towards me. I decided she was a very brave girl coming here based on an email sent to her by my deceased wife. (God! Even that sounded insane.)

  She stopped three feet in front of me and smiled uncertainly. ‘Andy?’ she asked softly.

  I nodded and smiled.

  She was dressed in a bright-yellow top and had a white cardigan draped over her shoulders. She wore black cropped trousers that ended just above her ankles that were wrapped in matching white sandals. She would not have looked out of place on the stool I had reserved beside the row of ‘platinums’ at the bar. She was very pretty without being gorgeous and I was amazed that she had shown up. At this point I had a problem with protocol. Should I have kissed her by now, or shaken her hand or simply said hello? Thankfully she noticed my uncertainty and held out her hand. For a brief second I had this ridiculous notion that I should kiss her hand like some stupid English aristocrat. I managed to restrain myself and simply took her hand in mine, it felt cool and soft. Her voice was confident and clear.

  ‘I’m Ellen, I wasn’t sure you’d be here, your email was . . . enigmatic.’

  That was a big word for a Friday night and I was slightly disappointed that my name guessing was wrong.

  I caught a whiff of her perfume, which I reckoned was expensive and tasteful, well, at least compared to the overpowering reek coming from the platinums. I’d forgotten how great women could smell. I mumbled something about being a ‘man of mystery’ which sounded naff even to me and offered her a glass of wine which she accepted. She placed her bag on the back of the reserved bar stool.

  ‘I think you are very brave turning up out of the blue – thank you,’ I said.

  Inside my head I heard myself say ‘thank you’. ‘Thank you’ – well, that was my air of mystery gone – plonker.

  I gazed at her cropped trousers and thought I’d try and retrieve the situation with a joke. ‘Aw, has your budgie died?’

  ‘I don’t have a budgie.’

  Ouch. A joke isn’t much good if you need to explain it. ‘No, I know, well actually I don’t know but, well it’s only an expression, a joke, you know because you’re wearing. . . .’ I wasn’t exactly sure what to call them – cropped trousers, cargo pants, shallots (aren’t they onions?) – so I pointed at her legs instead.

  She ignored my pointing finger.

  ‘Why would someone make a joke out of a wee boy’s beloved pet dying?’

  ‘What wee boy, I didn’t mention a wee boy?’

  ‘Well a wee girl then.’

  ‘I didn’t mention a wee girl either.’

  This was going well.

  ‘But you might as well have.’ Tears welled up in her eyes and she handed me her glass, grabbed her bag and stormed out of the bar. This was a déjà vu moment for me as I remembered Lindsay’s reaction to the au pair conversation, but at least Lindsay was drunk. Ellen, as far as I could tell, was stone cold sober. Unlike Lindsay, I didn’t chase after her. Maybe that told me something. Or maybe I just didn’t want to leave a full bottle of wine behind.

  The row of platinums had stopped gossiping for a moment and I could feel their eyes on me; they were probably wondering what I could have said to upset one of their own, especially in a world record time of less than ten seconds. It suddenly occurred to me that I was capable of repelling a woman in less time than it took Usain Bolt to run the hundred metres.

  I wondered what would be the best thing to do now. I noticed that the TV volume had been turned up and was drowning out most of the conversation in the bar. A Blue Square Premier football match was due to kick off in two minutes, Cambridge United vs. Woking. I also considered the almost full bottle of Chablis, for which I had paid eighteen pounds thirty-nine pence, and that another of ‘Lindsay’s lovelies’ might show up. I sighed, smiled at the previously sympathetic platinum and ordered some food. Maybe I should have eaten the broccoli and cauliflower after all or at least blagged one of the Cornettos.

  I settled in for the ninety minutes. What else could a man do in such a situation?

  Later that evening, after I’d sobered up, I returned home and relieved Pauline, who had enjoyed a relaxing evening catching up on a variety of soaps after Amy had fallen asleep. She quizzed me lightly about my evening but didn’t employ any of her interrogation techniques. I was reassuringly vague and thankfully she went home none the wiser. I knew she suspected something was going on but had not directly asked me anything, probably because she wanted to make sure of her ground first.

  I made myself a cup of tea and switched on my iPad. Out of curiosity I logged on to my email in case Lindsay had emailed me but instead I was surprised to discover a message waiting from Ellen.

  Lindsay had never said that she’d made my personal email address available to the mystery dates.

  Hi Andy,

  Ellen here, I got home and logged on to the dating site and noticed that your email address had appeared. I assume you did this after our disastrous date. Anyway I thought I would send you an email to apologize for this evening.

  Obviously Lindsay had built in some kind of planned delay into that dating site – there was no end to her talents. Ellen continued.

  I think I was maybe a bit over emotional.

  Well, that’s one way of putting it.

  It’s just as soon as I saw you I knew we wouldn’t be right for each other. You remind me of my ex-boyfriend. I knew that when I first saw your picture and that was why I turned up really – but it just brought back all the memories, and your stupid joke just pushed me over the edge. I hope you meet a nice girl soon;
it just won’t be me. So please stop emailing me and please don’t ever phone me.

  I racked my brain for a moment. From what I could tell Lindsay had emailed her only once and that was to ask her to meet tonight and that was via the mysterious dating site – it hardly amounted to stalking.

  Oh, and if you ever see me in the street or in a bar or in John Lewis where I go quite a lot, please don’t come up to me or even look at me if you can help it. In fact, if you could maybe avoid John Lewis altogether I would much appreciate it, otherwise I’ll always be looking over my shoulder in case you should appear.

  Love and kisses

  Ellen

  I decided that Ellen was a psycho.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I woke up the next morning with a sore head and a sinking feeling in my stomach. It might have partly been the whole bottle of Chablis I’d consumed but it was probably more likely that my Friday night had made me want to forget all about going out on Saturday. In fact, it made me want to forget about dating altogether; my wife was maybe not so wise after all.

  Despite my misgivings, once my hangover had cleared I decided to give it one more go. In reality it was easier to go out than to try and explain to Pauline why I didn’t need her child-minding services any more.

  After a day spent running after Amy, I dropped her off at Pauline’s flat and headed into town. It was overcast and dull, which accurately reflected my mood. I did not expect anyone to show up this time as ‘Psycho Ellen’ – as I now thought of her – had only made the effort due to the fact I resembled her ex. I decided to wait about half an hour then head home for a quiet evening on my own, Amy was going to stay over at Pauline’s and sleep in Lindsay’s old room.