by Mike Gayle
And while Angie’s lesser friends were busy plastering her Facebook page with messages of condolence, Russell was the only one who had bothered to pick up his phone and call her in person. Angie had answered within three rings but her sobbing and gurgling had been so intense that Russell had barely been able to understand a word so in the end he had told her to jump in a taxi and make her way over to his place.
‘It’s over between me and Aaron,’ said Angie, obviously struggling to stay in control.
‘I know. Is it for real?’
Angie nodded and put her beer down on the table. ‘It’s as real as it gets. You know how things between me and him have been up and down for a while?’
Russell nodded.
‘Well, this afternoon we had this massive heart-to-heart about where we were going and what we both wanted and all that and I suddenly realised we just weren’t right together. Whatever it is that two people are supposed to have we didn’t have it. I think we were just a bad habit that went on too long.’
‘But you two have been together for ages.’
‘Four years give or take.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Russell. ‘I mean, I could understand if it was four weeks. After all, that’s pretty much the standard time for things to run their course. But four years? That’s ridiculous. Plus you live together. How are you going to be able to afford your flat on your own? You love that place and let’s not forget how much you loathe living in shared houses. Remember last time you did it? You ended up in a girl fight over stolen yoghurt with the girl who lived across the hall!’
‘Great. Thanks, Russ.’ Angie started to cry again. ‘That’s just what I need right now: you telling me that I’m an idiot. Why stop there? I’ve got an iota or two of self confidence left so why don’t you really go to town and point out that I’ve got a couple of spots breaking out?’
‘Come on, Ange,’ sighed Russell. ‘You know that’s not what I meant. It’s a bit of a shock, that’s all. Any time that I’ve seen you two together you’ve always seemed pretty OK to me. That’s all I was trying to say. I wasn’t having a go, mate. Honest.’
‘OK,’ she said and then put her head on his shoulder and carried on sobbing.
He felt as if Russell and Angie had been friends forever even though it was actually only six years. They first met when Russell returned to Manchester from a year of post-university travelling and, desperate to pay off his debts, had started working at BlueBar, his elder brother Adam’s bar. Russell was more than a little attracted to her given that she ticked a lot of the boxes on his girlfriend requirements list. First, she liked to talk (Russell had dated enough cute but silent girls in his time whereas Angie could talk the back legs off a donkey), second he could talk to her (Russell had dated enough girls without sufficient personality) and finally she had a sense of humour (when she was on form Angie could make him laugh like no other human being on earth). As for looks, Russell wasn’t too fussed as he had never been into girls who couldn’t walk past a mirror without taking a glance at themselves. No, the kind of girls he liked were the kind that you didn’t really know you liked until you started talking to them. Those were his favourites: the ones you had to actively seek out and discover for yourself. Angie was a perfect example of that type of girl. And he had sought her out for a carefully arranged but casually proposed drink on their day off only to discover over two pints of Stella that she, like all the good ones, had already been discovered. Over the next couple of years their friendship had flourished. Perhaps because they had never found themselves single at the same time, Russell convinced himself that if the opportunity ever arose, sparks would be sure to fly but when that happened a month before she started seeing Aaron it was something of an anticlimax. Instead of feeling extra flirtatious Russell just felt really awkward and Angie obviously likewise. ‘It’s like we missed our window of opportunity,’ Russell later explained to Adam. ‘Ange and I are mates now. Anything else would be just plain weird.’
Russell sat silently cradling Angie in his arms on the sofa for over an hour before he felt able to suggest that it might be a good idea to get them both another beer. While he was up and in the kitchen he ordered a Chinese set meal for two to be delivered to the house and made a mug of tea just in case Angie wasn’t in the mood for Grolsch. Returning to the room he set the drinks on the table and turned on the TV. It being Saturday night there was nothing on but talent shows and big films and Russell was about to switch off when Angie made a comment about one of the celebrity contestants, which was the first time in an hour that she had spoken about anything other than Aaron. The comforting nature of reality TV appeared to relax her and by the time the Chinese food had arrived, been unpacked and consumed she seemed a lot more like her old self.
‘I really am sorry about ruining your evening,’ she said, setting her empty plate down in front of her. ‘You must think I’m a right nutter going on about Aaron like this.’
‘No chance,’ replied Russell. ‘We’re mates, aren’t we? That’s what mates do. They look out for one another.’
Angie picked up her beer and sighed, ‘I suppose.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s just that when it comes to us it’s always you looking out for me rather than me looking out for you. I thought friendship was supposed to be a two-way street.’
‘It is,’ said Russell. ‘You’re always looking out for me. You just don’t do it in such obvious ways, that’s all.’
‘Can’t agree with you there. I mean look at the evidence: I’ve been sitting here for a couple of hours now and it’s all been me, me, me. Think about it, Russ. I haven’t asked you a single question about your own life.’
‘Well go on then,’ laughed Russell. ‘What’s stopping you?’
Angie rubbed her hands with mock glee. ‘OK then, how’s work?’
‘It’s all right,’ said Russell. ‘Nothing to write home about but it’ll do.’
‘Next question: how are your folks?’
‘They’re cool. I’m having lunch at theirs tomorrow as per usual.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ said Angie. ‘I like a boy who is good to his old mum and dad. Next question: how are you getting on with your plans to go travelling next summer?’
Russell shrugged. ‘Haven’t done a thing about it.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Not saved a single penny. In fact I’m more broke this month than I was last.’
‘But you promised me you were going to start saving this month.’
‘I know. I know. I just had a couple of big bills, that’s all.’
‘Right,’ said Angie, ‘finally here’s the question that I always like to ask even though I know you’ll hate me because it reminds you of how loose your tongue gets when you’ve had a few. Anyway, here goes: how’s being in love with your middle brother’s girlfriend going?’
‘Hopeless,’ sighed Russell. ‘Truly hopeless.’
‘That’s not even a word!’
While Russell was lamenting the fact that he was in love with someone he shouldn’t be in love with, his middle brother Luke (average in both height and outlook on life but handsome in a teddy-bear-ish sort of way) was (even though he was unaware of it) staring very hard across the candlelit table at his girlfriend.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Cassie.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘No reason, it’s just that you were looking at me a bit strangely, as though that mackerel starter you just wolfed down was in the process of letting you know that it didn’t agree with you.’
‘Nope, it was great. Fantastic even. Possibly the best starter I’ve ever had.’
‘What’s up then?’
Luke shook his head. ‘Nothing . . . it doesn’t matter.’ He picked up the half-filled red-wine glass in front of him and raised it to eye level. ‘Let’s make a toast. To me and you and the last eighteen months of us-ness.’
‘Us-ness? That’s not even a word!’
A
cheesy smile spread across Luke’s face like he had just won a hundred pounds on a scratch card. ‘Isn’t it? Well it is now!’
Luke wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole. What was wrong with him? Why was he acting like an overgrown schoolgirl? As Cassie began telling him about an earlier conversation that she’d had with her sister, Luke tried to work out what was going on inside his brain and came to the conclusion that he was grateful. Not just ordinary everyday grateful but rather a big-grin-on-your-face, chest-puffed-out, walking-on-air kind of grateful. Appreciating the things that you have rather than the things that you want to have is not a particularly male trait and Luke was well aware of this. In general men aren’t given to moments of needless reflection. If things were going OK you might occasionally want to give yourself a mental thumbs-up sign, or spend a moment too long grinning at yourself in the mirror, or even occasionally close your eyes and raise a right hand for a symbolic high five. What you didn’t do was sit in a swanky city-centre Spanish restaurant on a Saturday night trembling with emotion as you stared at your girlfriend of eighteen months wondering what on earth you had done to be this lucky.
‘I love you, you know,’ said Cassie, raising her glass for Luke to clink. ‘I love you more than anything in the world.’
‘I love you too,’ said Luke.
There was a silence. Luke wondered if he ought to have offered more than a simple ‘I love you’ in return. Women liked it when you started getting into stuff a bit more deeply, didn’t they? They liked it when you said more than the bare minimum. He thought about telling her how grateful he was having her in his life. He thought about telling her about the difference that she made to his day, the thrill he still felt whenever he walked down the street holding her hand knowing that every guy who saw them together would know that he was her boyfriend. He thought about all this and more but of course he didn’t say any of it because the words just wouldn’t come. He’d never been great with words, at least not in a smooth way like his older brother Adam or in a sensitive this-is-how-I’m feeling way like his kid brother Russell. Even at work, when he was one hundred per cent in his own element and all he had to do was present the outlines of his contribution to a big engineering project, it still felt as though every word was a boulder that he had had to cough up from the depths of his belly. If he reacted like that outlining engineering reports then how was he supposed to be when it came to talking about love?
‘Eighteen months,’ said Cassie. ‘It doesn’t feel anything like eighteen months does it?’
‘More like two.’
‘That’s so sweet of you.’
Luke shrugged. He felt deceitful for giving Cassie the impression that that was the best he could do. There was more. Lots more. And it wanted to emerge, to be free and out in the open right now. In his thirty-four years alive he had only had this feeling once before and that had ended in disaster. Perhaps that was why he was trying to hang on to the words:he was desperately trying to keep history from repeating itself.
‘What can you remember about our first date?’ asked Cassie.
‘Everything.’ Luke was deliberately succinct. ‘How about you?’
‘Oi Bachelor!’ laughed Cassie. ‘I see what you’re doing! I want the detail, mister. I want to know everything that you remember. And I mean everything!’
It had been an ordinary Friday night eighteen months earlier and Luke had been drinking in a town bar with some workmates. The bar was throbbing with pent-up ‘it’s-the-weekend’ energy and seating was at a premium. People began to peel off to go home or get some food and soon Luke soon found himself on one side of a table on his own. Just as he had been planning to call it a day he’d received a text from Russell, asking whether he could borrow his car for a couple of hours to run some errands. Luke had replied that was fine as long as Russell remembered to put in petrol this time otherwise he would be forced to give him a severe beating and he had just been about to press send when he sensed that he was no longer alone and had looked up to see Cassie standing over him asking if the seats opposite were taken.
Luke had been so thrown by the sight of this amazing woman that he forgot to answer her question and just stared. He managed to regain his composure long enough to invite her to sit down. As Luke realised he no longer wanted to go home, he typed a new text message to his brother: ‘£100 and car for a week if get down to the Ha Ha Bar Room in 30.’ Luke pressed send and looked up at Cassie: ‘I’m just waiting for a friend,’ he said. ‘Looks like he’s running late.’
‘And do you remember how all we did that night was talk?’ laughed Cassie as she joined in with the story. ‘We just talked and talked and talked and talked. I’d never met anyone like you in my entire life.’
‘My favourite moment was when Russ turned up.’ Luke grinned. ‘He looked a right mess. There he was in a bar full of suits like some kind of overgrown student.’
‘He didn’t!’ protested Cassie.’He looked really cool.’
‘No, he looked like an idiot. The kind of daft fashion victim that populates record shops – which was in fact where he was working at the time – and who could have ruined my chances of getting the phone number of the young thing I was giving the full-on Bachelor treatment to!’
‘But making out you didn’t even know him was a bit cruel!’
‘It would’ve been more cruel to have spoken to him because if he had ruined things between you and me I would’ve had no choice but to take him outside and pummel him. Anyway, he got his hundred quid and my car and he still managed to return it without any bloody petrol!’
They both smiled as they recalled the events of that night. This is what happiness feels like, thought Luke. The feeling that some people spend their whole lives looking for and never find.
He sneaked an unsteady hand across the table, nearly knocking over Cassie’s wine in the process, and lifted up her fingers until they were intertwined with his own.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’ve had something on my mind ever since we sat down tonight and I’ve been trying to find a way to express it but I keep hitting a brick wall. I wish you could just climb into my head and know what I feel without me having to say. How great would that be? Not having to put stuff into words?’
‘I do know,’ said Cassie. ‘I really do.’
‘Well do you know that right now if I had a ring I would ask you to marry me?’
Cassie nodded. ‘And did you know that ring or no ring were you to ask me the answer would be yes?’
‘In that case I’m asking you to marry me,’ said Luke.
‘And in that case I’m saying yes.’
‘Filed away on my SIM card.’
It was the morning of the following day, a Sunday, and a barefoot Adam was standing on his front doorstep waving to the minicab driver currently pulled up over his front drive.
‘She’ll be with you in a minute, mate!’ he called as the driver wound down his window. ‘She’s just getting her things together.’
The minicab driver nodded and Adam returned indoors, picked up the mug of tea from the table in the hallway and took a sip. She made good tea. Nice and strong. No sugar. Not too much milk. He swished it around his mouth a bit as though it was mouthwash and was about to swallow when she appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘This is a nightmare,’ she said. ‘I can’t seem to find my other shoe.’
‘Have you checked the bedroom?’
She nodded. ‘And the bathroom. You couldn’t be a love and check downstairs for me?’
Heading into the kitchen Adam dropped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster and gave the room a quick scan before heading to the living room. He spotted the missing footwear – a gold high-heeled sandal – almost immediately as it was sitting on top of the coffee table in the middle of the room. He picked it up, smiled as he recalled the manner in which it had been abandoned and then called out that he had found it.
‘You’re a life saver!’ She slipped on the shoe like a latter-
day Cinderella and smoothed down the creases of her gold lamé minidress. ‘Right then, I’d better be off.’ She put her arms round his waist, kissed him and gave him a cheeky wink. ‘So, you’ve got my number?’
Adam nodded. ‘Filed away on my SIM card.’
‘Good.’ She kissed him again. ‘Don’t wait too long to text me.’
‘Make a lady wait? Wouldn’t dream of it.’
The girl picked up her expensive-looking designer bag from the sofa and left the room. Adam followed, picking up his tea on the way.
Adam stood on the doorstep and watched as she tottered down the drive and into the back of a silver Toyota Corolla. As the car pulled off Adam offered a final wave and then closed his eyes, turned his face towards the morning sun and savoured the sensation of the warmth on his face. This is the last time, he told himself, the very last time.
In essence, he reasoned as he returned inside and closed his front door, it had been his friends’ fault. All that talk of him being the least likely person to get hitched had provoked a lot of soul-searching when he should simply have been enjoying himself at the wedding. In truth Adam was actually quite worried that his friends were right. He had indeed spent too long chasing the wrong kind of girl and in the process had turned his whole life into one big fat men’s magazine cliché. After all here he was, a devastatingly good-looking, solvent, single man in his mid-thirties who also happened to be the owner of one of the coolest bars in south Manchester. The kinds of women he liked were indeed ones that most mere mortals couldn’t get within a few feet of without being tackled to the ground by security guards. And going out with them meant that he was part of an exclusive club featuring premier league football players, top name DJs and the odd younger member of the cast of Coronation Street. Really, it didn’t get any more exclusive than that. As for the women themselves Adam’s libido had a kind of mental checklist that it constantly and unconsciously referred to. Great face? Check. Long legs? Check. Tanned (fake or otherwise, he wasn’t fussy)? Check. Ridiculously tight minidress that showed off every asset? Check and bingo! In short Adam liked his women to be as flashy, sexually attractive and downright head-turning as it was humanly possible to be.