by Mike Gayle
‘No,’ said Steph firmly. ‘No bars, no clubs and no fancy restaurants.’
‘So what do you want to do then?’
‘I was wondering if you were free on Saturday afternoon?’
‘To do what?’
‘Can’t tell you. It’s a secret.’
‘What kind of secret?’
‘If I told you that it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?’
‘Fine,’ said Adam, who was so thrilled at the prospect of seeing her again that she could have revealed they were going seal-clubbing and he wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. ‘You name the time and the place and I’ll be there.’
‘Great,’ said Steph. ‘Why don’t I pick you outside Boots on the High Street at half two on Saturday?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
‘Good . . . oh, and Adam? You should dress as though you were going to be undertaking some kind of exercise.’
‘Exercise?’
‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘Exercise.’
When he finally got back to the table with their drinks, Lorraine had gone.
‘Aliens? Farm animals? Girls called Sue?’
‘You’re . . . thinking . . . that . . . you’ve . . . got . . . a . . . new . . . found . . . respect . . . for . . . me . . . aren’t . . . you?’
It was just after three on the following Saturday afternoon and Adam was lying on the floor of the badminton court at Chorlton Leisure Centre struggling to breathe and feeling seconds away from passing out with exhaustion. An hour and a half earlier Steph had picked Adam up from outside Boots and kept him in the dark about what they were going to be doing until they had pulled up at the Leisure Centre. Adam had pictured them possibly hill-walking or even mountaineering; he had been more than a little disappointed when Steph’s secret assignation had only involved a couple of games of badminton. Adam hadn’t played badminton since school and then only under duress because even at the age of fourteen he had been sure that badminton was strictly for the ladies.
‘What do you mean, new-found respect?’ Steph picked up the shuttlecock lying next to Adam’s head. ‘I won every single game and now look at you! I wouldn’t have thought you’d break sweat playing a game that you considered to be “strictly for the ladies”!’
‘But . . . that . . . was . . . before . . . anyway . . . there . . . were . . . a . . . couple . . . of . . . moments . . . back . . . there . . . when . . . it . . . could . . . have . . . so . . . easily . . . gone . . . my . . . way.’
‘In your dreams, Bachelor Boy! That was just me going easy on you so you didn’t get dispirited. Even though I say so myself I am ace at badminton.’ She held out her right hand to help him to his feet and he gratefully reached out and grabbed it. It felt soft and slender in his grip and even once he was on his feet he didn’t want to let go.
‘Right then,’ said Steph, subtly extricating her hand. ‘I’m heading off for a shower. I’ll see you at the front when I’m done and then I’ll give you a lift back to your place if you like. Given the way you look right now you don’t stand much chance of making it home on foot.’
It was just after four when they pulled up in front of Adam’s house.
‘So this is you,’ she said pulling on the handbrake. She turned to look at Adam. ‘It was really nice of you to agree to playing with me today. Even though you were beyond hopeless I had a lot of fun.’
‘So does that mean that I’ll be seeing you again?’
‘I dare say if you’re at a loose end and fancy another thrashing at badminton you will.’
‘And what about non-badminton-related events?’
‘How do you mean exactly?’
‘Let me take you out tonight. And before you say no, hand on heart I promise on pain of death that I won’t try it on or anything. What I’m suggesting will be something along the lines of two old school mates who occasionally play the noble game of badminton having a meal together during which nothing other than eating and good conversation will occur. Come on Steph, what do you say?’
‘Well, because you sent me that Rothko card, were a good sport about losing today and asked so nicely I will agree to meet you this once for dinner tonight. But that’s all, OK?’
‘Great,’ said Adam. ‘I’ll have a ring round and see where has got a table free and let you know where to meet.’
It was just after eight and Adam was sipping a glass of bottled water and about to help himself to a bread roll when he looked up to see Steph standing right in front of him. She was wearing a black polka-dot top with a black cardigan and a black knee-length skirt, black tights and flat black pumps. She looked pretty but Adam couldn’t help but smile at the thought that, had Steph been given a brief to select an outfit that none of his previous conquests would have been seen dead in, this was pretty much it.
Standing up to greet her Adam kissed her on both cheeks and Steph, seemingly unused to Continental-style cheek-kissing by men like Adam in the middle of south Manchester, had let confusion show briefly on her face.
Initially they talked about badminton again (Adam had had to lie down for most of the afternoon because of a shooting pain in his thigh) but after a while the conversation moved on to work. Steph had spent the previous week helping the shelter she worked at put together a bid for a funding application to local government that, if successful, would enable them to double the number of full-time staff they had on site and increase the number of women they helped by a third. Adam, who had spent most of his week doing very little apart from trying to sort out a new batch of dates with the Right Kind of Girls, felt obliged to embellish his account with tales of high-level meetings, various bits of ‘paperwork-chasing’ and a staff day out. He had impressed himself with his action-filled working week.
‘So come on then,’ said Steph later as Adam used up his final current affairs fact that he had cribbed from the Guardian specifically to impress her and the waiter cleared away their plates and handed out dessert menus. ‘What is this really all about?’
‘What is what all about?’
‘This,’ said Steph. ‘You and me sitting here in this nice little restaurant like we’re on some kind of a date: is this a joke or a bet?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘So explain to me why twenty-odd years down the line the best-looking boy at school – and before you flatter yourself let’s not forget that there wasn’t a great deal of competition – has been making overtures towards a girl whom he regularly referred to as Hopeless Holmes?’
Adam considered her question and decided that now was the time to reveal all. ‘It’s like this,’ he confessed. ‘A little while ago it was pointed out to me by my close friends that it might be time for me to stop dating . . .’ He paused, wondering how a politically correct paper like the Guardian might describe the kinds of girls that he normally went out with. After a few moments of struggling he found the right phrase. ‘Inappropriate women.’
‘‘‘Inappropriate?’’’ Steph seemed a little shocked. ‘In what way?’
Adam tutted under his breath. This was the problem with political correctness: no one knew what anyone meant. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I used to go out with . . . how shall I put it . . . the wrong kind of girl.’
‘As in . . .’
‘Well, you know,’ shrugged Adam. ‘The wrong kind like . . .’
‘Like what? Aliens? Farm animals? Girls called Sue? Be more specific.’
‘OK,’ said Adam, ‘I mean . . . lap dancers . . . and page three models . . . and page seven models . . . glamour models . . . various former members of the cast of Hollyoaks . . . numerous ex-girlfriends of premier-league football players . . . former TV reality show contestants . . . and pretty much any kind of girl who considers underwear as suitable outerwear in which to go clubbing.’ Adam winced as he took in Steph’s horrified face.
‘Did you leave anyone out?’
‘No, that is pretty much everything.’
Steph took a long sip from her wine glass. ‘
So are you saying that you used to date quite a few girls like that?’
‘No,’ replied Adam. ‘What I’m saying is that I only ever dated girls like that.’
‘Am I right in thinking that you’re interested in me because it might be time to stop dating girls like that?’
‘Look,’ he began. ‘It’s complicated. All I know is that I’m done with that world.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I just know.’ An image of the Swedish/Danish girl flashed in his head.
‘Am I supposed to be impressed by this news?’ she said, fluttering her eyes lashes in a comically coquettish fashion. ‘Oh, the gorgeous and mighty Adam Bachelor is no longer interested in girls who wear underwear as outerwear so now brainy girls with glasses stand a chance!’
‘No,’ said Adam curtly. ‘I’m just saying that I am done dating the wrong kind of girls. I’m only interested in the right kind.’
‘And they would be what exactly?’
‘Girls you can have conversations with and who will laugh at your jokes; girls who can walk past a mirror without looking into it and aren’t always worrying about their nails; girls who your mates like and your mum will think make you a better person; in short the right kind of girl would be a lot like you . . . but obviously not you because as you’ve been at pains to point out ever since we met, I’m not your type.’
‘Three years.’
Once Steph had finished mocking Adam and his attempts to find the right kind of girl the rest of the evening went by in a blur. Deliberately steering clear of the topic of relationships, they chatted about pretty much everything else and at just after midnight with coffees consumed and second bottles of wine finished off their evening together had come to an end. Adam refused Steph’s offer to go halves, paid the bill and said he’d walk her home.
‘Tell me something about you that would surprise me,’ she said, taking Adam by the arm. ‘And when I say surprise me I mean really surprise me. I’m not interested in any revelations of the third-nipple variety or anything that involves you once having been a woman.’
Adam thought for a moment. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’ve got something which you’ll find surprising but it’s not so much about me as about my kid brother Russell.’
‘What about him?’
‘You know I told you that my middle brother Luke has got a girlfriend called Cassie? Russell is in love with her.’
‘Really? Did he tell you this?’
‘Of course not,’ said Adam. ‘Me and Russ haven’t got that kind of relationship. We talk about general stuff . . . fun stuff, not anything serious like love. If Russ wanted to unburden his soul he’d probably be more likely to go to Luke than me and given the circumstances that is never going to happen.’
‘So how do you know then?’
‘It’s weird, but I’ve just picked up on it over time. Changes in Russ’s face whenever Cassie speaks to him, the way he hangs on to her every word, snatched glances whenever he thinks no one is looking.’
‘And no one else in your family knows?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware.’
‘And you’re pretty chuffed about that, aren’t you?’
‘Well, wouldn’t you be if everyone in your family had you pegged as a jack-the-lad with all the sensitivity of a house brick? I like being able to spot an acute case of unrequited love when I see one. It makes me feel human.’
‘And that’s your surprising thing? That you spotted your brother’s longing for someone he can’t have?’
‘You sound disappointed.’
‘No,’ replied Steph with a grin, ‘that tone in my voice is actual one hundred per cent shock and awe. I stand corrected, Adam Bachelor: despite what I might have implied earlier today there is definitely more to you than meets the eye.’
At Steph’s front door Adam accepted her invitation to come in for a drink. Her terraced house was pretty much everything he expected it to be: ordered, girlie and the absolute opposite of his own. There were a few touches that he liked: a big pop art poster above the fireplace and the fact that as far as he could discern she didn’t have a cat. Opening up a bottle of wine in the kitchen they continued chatting as though there really was going to be no end to the evening and then began a conversation about a travel adventure holiday to southern Asia that Steph had been thinking of going on with a friend. This had led to a conversation about holidays and travelling in general, and places they would and wouldn’t like to go to one day, and somehow (Adam wasn’t quite sure how but no doubt all the wine they had consumed had helped make a connection, no matter how tenuous) they’d got round to talking about relationships: specifically Steph’s last one eighteen months earlier with a barrister called Rav.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this,’ said Adam as Steph concluded the tale of the demise of her relationship, ‘but Rav the barrister sounds like a right idiot. How long were you with him again?’
Steph shook her head in disbelief. ‘Three years.’
‘It took you three years to work out what a jerk he was?’
Steph took a sip of her wine. ‘It’s very kind of you to gloss over the facts, Adam, but things ended not because he was a jerk but because he went off with someone else.’
‘But you would have worked it out though, eh?’
Steph shrugged. ‘Who knows? At the time I thought he was the most wonderful man that I’d ever met but now – excuse the image – I wouldn’t spit on him if he was on fire.’
‘Believe me it was his loss, not yours.’
Steph raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you think?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ she sighed. ‘He’s married now and I heard on the grapevine that his new wife is expecting twins.’
‘But you wouldn’t have wanted all that with the wrong man, would you?’
‘Rather than never having it at all? Sometimes I’m not so sure.’
‘Who said anything about never having it at all?’
Steph shrugged. ‘Let’s look at the facts: I’m thirty-eight and single. Even if I met someone I wanted to be with tomorrow I couldn’t begin thinking kids for another year by which time I’d be thirty-nine, and then of course there’s the fact that my fertility is waning the older I get. So let’s say optimistically it will take me a year to get pregnant by which time I’ll be forty and this is only if I find the right man tomorrow. Now if you factor in the information that it’s been six months since I joined an internet dating agency – and no, Adam, I’m not going to tell you which one – and in all that time I’ve been on three dates, only one of which managed to get to a second date before he was whisked off to Chicago by the company he worked for, then I think you’ll appreciate why I feel more than a little fed up about men.’ She flopped her head into her hands in mock shame.
Adam instinctively put his arms round her and held her as tightly as he could. After a while because the holding and squeezing thing didn’t seem to be doing the trick he started stroking her hair and whispering that she shouldn’t worry and that everything was going to be all right. He pulled her closer not as a means to take things further as might have happened in the past but rather to protect her. How weird was that? Adam had somehow become the kind of guy who protected girls like Steph from the affections of guys like him. It made no sense and complete sense all at the same time. This was what it felt like putting someone else’s needs before your own. Adam was wishing that this moment would last for ever when something weird happened: Steph reached up and gently guided Adam’s lips towards her own and then they kissed for two, possibly three seconds before Adam pulled away.
‘Look, Steph,’ he said quickly. ‘You really don’t want to be doing this.’
‘And why not?’
‘Because you’ll regret it in the morning. I know it seems like a great idea now but wasn’t it you who said you wanted to be mates and nothing more?’
‘Yes.’
‘And haven’t I got the worst reputation of
any man you’ve known?’
‘Possibly.’
‘So this,’ he gestured to the space between them, ‘right here right now is not a good idea.’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Adam?’
‘Yeah?’
‘If I say something will you promise not to take offence?’
‘Of course, just fire away.’
‘Good, because the last thing I want is to offend you. So would you please just shut up and kiss me before you permanently ruin this moment for both us!’
Was this really a meeting of equals as she was indicating or a situation where one party was exploiting an emotionally charged situation for their own gain? wondered Adam. After a few moments of looking into Steph’s eyes he had his answer: there was no exploitation to speak of but this certainly wasn’t a meeting of equals. The balance of power was all in the hands of the woman opposite him on the sofa and he was powerless to refuse her demands.
‘Did he put up much resistance?’
It was the following Sunday morning and Luke was lying in bed imagining that, instead of being at some undisclosed address in south Manchester, Cassie was actually downstairs in the kitchen assembling the items for their usual weekend breakfast in bed. In his mind’s eye cupboard doors were opening and closing; pots and pans were being put on the stove; and Cassie would be making scrambled eggs on toast while the kettle boiled in preparation for their morning mug of tea. Luke pictured Cassie wearing her usual weekend morning uniform: a worn grey-hooded top over an old T-shirt matched with the grey men’s pyjama bottoms that she had bought him from Gap for Christmas last year. Her hair would be tied back from her face, her skin devoid of make-up, and she would look completely and utterly delightful. In a moment or two things would start coming together: tea bags with hot water, butter with toast, eggs on plates, cutlery on tray and then very carefully she would bring it through the hallway and up the stairs until she would be outside their room.