by Mike Gayle
‘OK, there is sort of something going on but I know you’re going to go mad at me . . . I’ve finally decided to tell Cassie how I feel about her.’
Angie’s eyes widened. ‘You’ve what? I thought you were all sworn off Cassie since your brother and her decided to get hitched?’
‘I thought I was over her.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Everything.’ Russell could see that Angie was already losing patience. ‘It’s not easy, you know. I really was serious about moving on. Even I could see there was no point now that they’re engaged. But just when I thought I was rid of her for good she invited me round to hers and I couldn’t say no, and Luke wasn’t there and she was looking all cute and vulnerable in that way she does and . . .’
‘You’re not trying to tell me something happened?’
Russell shook his head. ‘Not in the way that you mean. It’s just that . . . I don’t know . . .’
‘You’re back in love with her?’
‘It’s pathetic isn’t it?’
‘I think the word you’re looking for is spineless.’
‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘I’m just telling it the way I see it: nice bloke falls in love with wrong girl is fine. Nice bloke falls in love with wrong girl and is given a cast-iron reason to fall out of love and yet still remains in love with wrong girl is . . . spineless. You don’t want me to sugar-coat this for you do you? Because I’m sure that I don’t need to remind you I’m not that kind of friend.’
‘At this rate you won’t be any kind of friend at all,’ complained Russell. ‘Sometimes I don’t know what gets into you.’
‘Fine,’ she snapped, shooting him a look of hurt and fury. ‘Whatever.’ She headed in the direction of the downstairs toilets.
Russell leaned back in the sofa and finished off his pint. Angie was right. What was he doing even thinking of telling Cassie about his feelings? He made his way to the bar and, after ten minutes of being ignored by an over-coiffured barman, ordered another round and returned to the sofa where a glowering Angie was now back.
‘For you,’ he said, sliding over a fresh vodka and Red Bull by way of a peace offering. ‘Because I love you, you old slag.’
‘Is it a double?’
Russell nodded and Angie threw of look of mock disdain in Russell’s direction. ‘In that case I suppose you’re forgiven.’
They drank more than usual in a bid to make good their pact to avoid any conversation related to Cassie or Aaron, and when Angie received a text inviting her to meet up with some of her friends at a club in town, she put the proposition to Russell.
‘But I don’t dance,’ said Russell. ‘And I hate nightclubs.’
Angie rolled her eyes. ‘One: you don’t have to dance, and two: given the fact that I’ve forgiven you for this whole Cassie thing that you’ve got going on the least you can do to keep me sweet is to ignore the fact that you hate nightclubs. All I’m asking is that you come along with me and keep me from doing anything stupid.’
‘So doing something stupid is definitely on the cards then?’
‘Have you seen how much I’ve had to drink? I’ll probably do something stupid and then something really stupid on top of that just for effect.’
They arrived at the club on Princess Street just after midnight and within seconds Russell was wishing he had caught a taxi home. It wasn’t just that the club was filled with students and that their very presence seemed to render every item of clothing he was wearing immediately unfashionable. No, what bothered Russell were all the couples dotted about the place rampantly getting off with each other. Did they need to do this in such an open arena? Couldn’t any of them wait until they got home? Did none of them possess a sufficient sense of decorum to conclude that this kind of thing might be better done in private?
‘They’re just being kids,’ reasoned Angie. ‘Don’t you remember what it felt like?’
‘Nah, mate, not like that.’
‘You sound like an old man.’
‘Maybe that’s because I am,’ shouted Russell over the music. ‘I don’t understand what we’re doing. We’re practically a decade older than most of the kids in here. It feels like we’re a couple of creepy weirdos crashing their party or something.’
Angie stared at Russell.
‘What?’
‘Are you really going to tell Cassie how you feel about her?’
Russell shrugged.
‘What do you think she’s going to say when you tell her?’
He shrugged again. ‘I don’t think that’s really the point of the exercise.’
‘So what is?’
‘Who knows? To unburden myself I suppose. To stop feeling like I always bottle everything up. I’m sick of keeping in all these things that I want to say . . . that I feel I need to say. I’m not expecting she’ll say them back. I’m not that naive.’
‘And your brother?’
‘What about him?’
‘What will he do when she tells him?’
‘Probably punch my lights out. Luke’s temper’s never been as bad as Adam’s but even he’s got his limits.’
‘You are insane, do you know that?’
‘I know. It’ll be a suicide mission, though knowing my luck I’ll live to regret it. But sometimes the only thing is to be true to yourself, isn’t it?’
Russell turned to walk towards the bar to get them another drink but he felt Angie tug on his arm.
‘Come and have a dance,’ she said. ‘I love this song.’
Russell groaned. ‘I told you I don’t dance.’
‘I know you don’t dance for you. But you never said that you wouldn’t dance for me.’ She tugged his arm again. ‘Please! Pretty please! Russ, I love this song. Please don’t spoil this for me.’
‘OK, OK,’ sighed Russell, allowing Angie’s hand to slide down his arm to his hand. ‘Lead the way.’ And that’s exactly what she did. She excused her way through dancing groups and couples right to the centre of the dance floor and began moving in time to the music, eyes closed, her hands firmly clutching Russell’s and singing along with the words with such conviction that it was almost as though the words were her own and coming directly from her heart. Russell allowed himself to loosen up and began dancing too. He closed his eyes in a bid to feel slightly less self-conscious and for a moment or two he was lost in the music and probably would have remained there had something odd not happened. Angie put her arms round him, her face buried in his chest and he found himself wrapping his arms round her, pulling her body close into his own. A moment or two in this new position passed and then Russell found himself lowering his head towards Angie’s and was pleased to see her meeting him halfway. This was a joint decision, a moment of mutuality, a brief acknowledgement that things would never be the same between them ever again, a tacit agreement that this new state of affairs was all right. But at the forefront of Russell’s mind was the idea that this was the answer to all his problems: with one swift action he could rid himself of Cassie once and for all.
So he kissed her.
‘You’ll wake the baby!’
It was just after eight the following evening and Adam was standing in front of his bedroom mirror undertaking the time-honoured four-dab aftershave splash as part of his preparations for a big night out when his home phone rang.
Picking it up from its cradle on his bedside table he carefully admired his reflection in the mirror. In a crisp white designer shirt, jeans and a pair of tan leather brogues (all of them brand new) he really did look good enough to eat.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, Adam, it’s me,’ said his mum quietly.
Adam sat down on his bed, immediately on edge. Mum was supposed to be in Leeds visiting her sister Rose. Mum never called when she went to stay with Aunt Rose because they always had such a good time. Plus his mum’s voice sounded wrong. Strained somehow.
‘Hi Mum, are you OK? You don’t sound like yourself.’
�
��Oh, I’m fine,’ she said, sniffing slightly. ‘I’m just feeling a little under the weather, that’s all.’
‘Is it a cold or something?’
‘Probably.’
‘You should see a doctor.’
‘You can’t go to the doctor’s for a cold, Adam! That’s not how I brought you up. You don’t clog up Dr Evensham’s surgery with that kind of thing, do you?’
‘Of course not.’ He wished he’d kept his mouth shut. ‘I was just thinking about you, that’s all.’
There was a silence. Adam couldn’t work out what was going on. As well as never calling from Auntie Rose’s Mum never called for a chat. One of the golden rules Mrs Bachelor had instituted for her sons was that all chat-based telephone conversations should originate from her offspring. ‘I’m not going to be chasing after you with expensive telephone calls just to find out how you are,’ she had told Adam the day he left home. And she never had either. She’d call under the guise of delivering important information (‘Don’t forget that the clocks go back tonight!’); she’d call in order to recruit Adam to pass on messages to his brothers (‘And the next time you speak to that middle brother of yours make sure you tell him to call me straight away!’); and occasionally she’d even call to ask him to explain some matter of technology that was eluding both her and Dad (‘So, Adam, this email business? Where exactly do you buy the stamps?’) but the one thing she never did was ring without a purpose. And yet here she was at the end of the line saying absolutely nothing. Possibly it was her cold. Colds could indeed do that sort of thing to people but Adam was pretty sure that his mum was not in any way shape or form ‘people’.
‘Are you sure you’re OK, Mum?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine . . .’
‘How’s Aunt Rose?’
‘She’s good and sends her love.’
‘Have you spoken to Dad yet?’
‘Not tonight.’
‘How come?’
‘I didn’t want to bother him.’
There was another long silence. Adam looked at his watch and wondered how long this would go on for.
‘Look, Mum, I was sort of just on my way out . . .’
‘Oh, of course,’ she replied. ‘Yes, sorry, you get on.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow though.’
‘Yes, yes of course.’
‘Love you, Mum.’
‘Yes, dear, love you too.’
An hour and a short cab ride later Adam was sipping a Grey Goose vodka and tonic at the Silver Arcade Bar at the Armada Hotel (aka the number one Premier League footballers’ hangout). His presence there was purely based on the golden rule of big nights out in the North-West: the best-looking girls in Manchester are always be found in the vicinity of the best-looking (and richest) men in Manchester and there really wasn’t a better place he could be in order to make his point.
There were girls everywhere. And not just regular pretty girls either but ludicrously hot-looking girls in shimmery tops and short skirts with perfectly tanned legs. These were to a woman the Wrong Kinds of Girls but he didn’t care about any of that any more. Although it had taken him the best part of a week to process Steph’s rejection (which had involved him wandering glowering around south Manchester with only the blackest of black moods to keep him company) he now considered himself well and truly over the event and had chosen to celebrate in the only way he knew how: by going all out to pull the most wrong of all wrong types of girl that he could possibly pull on a Saturday night in the one place that he knew would be thronging with them. The Meals for One chill cabinet in M & S this was not. And so after a couple of circuits of the bar to measure up the talent he finally decided on a tall, frizzy-haired girl with deep brown eyes wearing a purple top and barely-there miniskirt who looked as though she had just stepped out of the final frame of a hip-hop video on MTV.
The girl was called Dee and as it turned out wasn’t even from Manchester. She was actually from Essex but was up in the North-West for the weekend working as a promotions girl for a leading sports car manufacturer at the motor show being held at Manchester Central. Within ten minutes Adam came to the conclusion that not only was Dee vain and superficial to the point of caricature but she wasn’t all that bright either. But Adam didn’t care. All he cared about as he left the bar with Dee and some of her equally glamorous mates and ushered them past the queues to the VIP entrances of three different bars and two different clubs, was the fact she made it clear that the only way she could have thought he was any cooler would have been for him to have levitated right in front of her.
Seeing her friends off in a cab just after five, Adam took Dee to one last club (just so that he could introduce her to a couple of the younger members of the cast of Hollyoaks) before heading back home to Chorlton.
‘So do you live here on your own?’ asked Dee as the taxi pulled up outside his house and Adam paid the cab driver.
‘Yeah,’ replied Adam. ‘I know it’s a little big for just me but I like my space.’
Dee kissed Adam full on the lips and led him up to his front door where they kissed again.
‘We really should do this indoors,’ murmured Adam, reaching inside his jacket for his key, ‘the last thing I need is the neighbours complaining again!’
Dee sniggered like a naughty schoolgirl as Adam opened the door enabling the two of them to collapse giggling into the hallway.
‘Shhhhh!’ Dee adopted a comedy Mancunian accent. ‘You’ll wake the baby!’
‘Listen, babe, why don’t you go put some music on in the front room while I’ll go and see if I can find some glasses for this champagne you made me buy.’
He kissed her again, a long slow kiss, and then brandishing the bottle of ludicrously overpriced champagne he headed for the kitchen. He was still rooting around in the cupboard when there was an ear-piercing scream from the living room.
Adam was there within seconds and was completely gobsmacked by what he saw: a horrified-looking Dee facing his horrified-looking dad who was standing in the middle of the living room wearing only a plain white T-shirt and boxer shorts.
‘I thought you lived alone?’ said Dee.
‘I do,’ stammered Adam. He looked at his dad and the duvet lying on the sofa behind him. ‘Dad, what are you doing here?’
‘I needed somewhere to stay, son.’
‘What do you mean? Why would you need somewhere to stay? You’ve got a house.’
Dad looked at Dee, his face the picture of embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry, love.’
‘You nearly gave me a heart attack,’ said Dee.
‘You and me both,’ he said, sitting down on the sofa.
Adam couldn’t stand this small talk any more. ‘Dad! Come on! You’re in my living room in your boxer shorts . . . what’s wrong? Why aren’t you at home?’
His dad looked at the floor. ‘I didn’t want you to find out like this. I didn’t want you to find out like this at all.’
‘Find out what?’
‘It’s me and your mum.’ He met Adam’s gaze full on. ‘I don’t really know how to say this so I’ll just come out with it. I’m sorry, son, I’ve left her.’
Part 2
‘Just say it.’
Adam cracked his left eyelid open, yawned and cast his gaze in the direction of the bedside clock which told him was it was quarter to one in the afternoon. Squeezing his open eye shut, he turned over and tried to go back to sleep. Given the strange and disturbing nature of the dreams that he had been having all night (something to do with his dad, a screaming girl and a very nasty surprise) this was probably a mistake. Something was wrong, he could feel it deep in his bones. But what was it? He snaked out an arm out from underneath the warmth of his duvet and stretched out his legs; he opened his left eye, quickly followed by his right and saw the problem right in front of him: the other side of the bed was empty. How could that possibly be true? Surely his throbbing head was evidence that he had been on a big night out? And what kind of big night out could possib
ly result in him waking up alone in bed? Adam pondered the problem and decided the scenario was so unlikely that there could only be one answer: she had already got up and was currently doing something sexy like making breakfast for the two of them wearing nothing but his shirt. What did she look like? He had no idea. But she would be a cracker. He climbed out of bed, flung on his towelling dressing gown, and made his way gingerly downstairs. He was all ready to feast his eyes upon the cornucopia of delights that were no doubt waiting for him when the kitchen door opened and there in front of him with a bowl of cereal in his hands and wearing a shapeless plain white T-shirt and blue boxer shorts and very little else was his dad. Suddenly it all came back to him. His dad. A girl. And an awful lot of screaming. No, it hadn’t been a dream at all. It had been real. Very real. His parents’ forty-year marriage was over.
Half an hour later having showered, shaved and left half a dozen messages for each of his brothers Adam made his way back down to the kitchen to restart his morning.
‘All right, Dad?’ he said to his father who was standing at the sink washing up his cereal bowl. Adam glanced down at the dishwasher that he was pretty sure his dad knew existed and sighed. ‘Sorry about just turning round like that and heading back upstairs. I think I was still half asleep and well . . . you sort of took me by surprise. Anyway, did you sleep OK?’
‘I slept fine, son.’ He shook the soap suds from his hands into the sink, then paused and looked at Adam as if awaiting some kind of news or admonishment from his son. Adam felt there was nothing to say until his dad had at the very least had a cup of tea.
‘Fancy a brew?’
‘Definitely. And some toast wouldn’t go amiss. I had some of your bran flakes but I can’t say that they really agree with me.’
‘One tea and toast coming up,’ said Adam. ‘Just make yourself comfortable in the front room and I’ll bring it in to you.’