by Adele Parks
Nat had behaved strangely skittishly this morning as she dressed for work. There had been something excitable and unpredictable, almost rebellious, about her. She’d changed her top three times and worn high heels. It wasn’t that Neil disapproved (he loved to see her in heels), it was just unsettling. He’d turned his desk calendar to October yesterday; shouldn’t she be comfortably slipping into her Uggs now? Bloody ugly things but comfortable and practical when dashing for a bus in the rain-splattered streets, that’s what she always claimed. Weren’t Uggs good enough for a poetry recital? Fuck it, Neil couldn’t put his finger on exactly what was bothering him, so he did the thing he always did in situations where he felt confused, he chose to ignore the feeling. Better to go out with Karl and get blathered. Nat was simply going to listen to poetry with her pal from work, on a Friday, end of story. It was nothing to do with him wanting a baby. She’d probably be furious if she knew he’d imagined a connection. She’d call him a self-obsessed wanker (playfully, he hoped).
Karl was always free for a swift one (woman, fag or pint) and so he instantly agreed to meet up. Neil noticed that Karl did not check with Jen to see whether she had plans or she minded him making independent arrangements on a Friday night. Neil also called Tim. He wasn’t hopeful that Tim would join them but he knew Tim was easily offended and hated to feel left out. Surprisingly, Tim agreed to join them too (although he did clear it with Ali first).
Neil was the first to arrive. He ordered three pints and sat on a bench in the corner, waiting for his mates. Everything about the Goat and Gate was reassuringly recognisable. Neil felt comforted by the fact that he was familiar with every inch of the smelly, tatty, beer-doused floor and with every single brass hanging and insipid water painting that poxed the walls. He knew all the available brands of beers, stouts and lagers, on tap and bottle. He knew all the tracks on the juke box. He even knew the exact order in which the crisps boxes were lined up under the bar (ready salted, cheese and onion, salt and vinegar, smoky bacon). The Goat and Gate was one of the few pubs in Chiswick that had avoided being sucked into the horrible, soulless vortex of a bar franchise. It remained shoddy cruddie, not even shabby chic, and Neil, Tim and Karl loved it all the more for that fact.
The three of them had been going out for pints together for years. Between them they’d probably drunk a lake. Sometimes they met up to watch a match on the pub’s big screen when they would be either jubilant or angry depending on whether their team had been victorious or thwarted. Either way, they’d scream themselves hoarse. Sometimes they bickered or blathered inanely, they told jokes, climbed on their soap boxes or (just to fulfil female expectation) lapsed into lengthy silences. Slow, still, deep, comfortable silences.
Tim and Karl arrived within minutes of one another. They sat down, sank their waiting pints and then Karl swiftly went to the bar and ordered another round.
‘I’m on a mission,’ he said as he slammed the fresh pints on to the table with such force that beer splashed on to his hand. ‘Thank fuck you called.’
‘Why?’
‘Jen is being a nightmare.’
‘Yeah, well, it’s to be expected now she’s got an inkling that last Saturday, when you said you were with your big gang of friends from uni, you were with some girl you hooked up with through Facebook,’ commented Tim, not bothering to try to sound anything other than judgemental. Tim thought Jen was a decent girlfriend and didn’t like the way Karl chose to treat her; he wished he wasn’t privy to it. ‘I suppose she wants to split up now,’ he added.
‘Well, that goes to show what you know about women,’ said Karl shortly. ‘Her response to her suspicions of my infidelity has been to intensify her campaign for us to get married.’
‘Why?’ asked Tim, bewildered.
Karl did not bother to explain, he thought Tim was a dope when it came to women but since Tim was already married, Karl didn’t think it was worth wasting his time educating his friend. When Karl looked at Tim he saw a man who had already committed the crime of ignorance and he saw a condemned man serving out his punishment.
‘Being around her is like picking through a field scattered with undetonated landmines. Everything I say leads to a row,’ grumbled Karl.
‘Are you going to finish it?’ asked Neil.
‘No.’
‘Are you going to finish it with the other woman?’ asked Tim.
‘No.’
‘Have you ever considered the benefits of being faithful?’ inquired Neil.
‘No.’
‘What are you going to do then?’ probed Tim.
‘Told you. Get drunk.’
‘That’s not very helpful,’ pointed out Tim.
‘But very predictable,’ added Neil.
‘It’s Jen that’s being chronically predictable in this,’ said Karl, outraged. ‘All she wants is her big day and a big bump to follow. It’s not even that she wants to marry me, especially. She just feels entitled. I blame Christopher Shaw.’
‘Who is Christopher Shaw?’ asked Tim, confused.
‘Her ex. She did four years’ hard labour with him but he dumped her because he didn’t feel ready to commit. Then, to add insult to her injury, he got engaged to the very next girl he dated within a year. She feels competitive.’
Neil was impressed that Karl had given the issue so much thought, although this new insight only confirmed Neil’s belief that Karl and Jen’s relationship was a debacle. Jen only wanted Karl because her ex had ditched her and was going to marry someone else and Karl didn’t want Jen at all, at least not exclusively and not consistently. What a mess. The guys finished their pints and it was Tim’s turn to go to the bar.
When he returned, he sighed deeply and said, ‘I don’t get the way women think.’ He was in fact considering his own situation when he made this comment, not Karl’s. Ali had recently spent £400 on baby equipment and clothes, even though they had yet to see the necessary life-confirming blue line on the pee stick. But she’d hyperventilated when he’d suggested their car would look cool with new hubcaps.
‘I am deeply suspicious of any man who says he understands the way women think,’ agreed Neil. Why wouldn’t Nat want the traditional bump? Jen wanted one. Ali did too. Most women did, didn’t they? It was part of their being, wasn’t it? Why not his wife?
‘Why would Jen imagine I’d want to spend all my savings on the aforementioned atrocity, aka a wedding day? I’d rather fly club class to Barbados or Australia and, I don’t know, swim with dolphins, dive amongst the coral or something. She could come too,’ added Karl, smiling at his own generosity. ‘Or, we could go to Vegas and blow it at the tables. She could even wear a spangled dress out there and get pissed on champagne. That would be a lot like a wedding.’
The three men stared at their pints and shook their heads. The pints they’d already drunk in quick succession sloshed to their senses and drowned grey matter.
‘There’s only one reasonable response to tonight,’ said Karl emphatically.
‘What’s that?’ asked his friends, relieved that Karl, as always, had a solution or at least a distraction to take them away from their problems.
‘Hush Hush.’
‘You mean Hush Hush as in the lap-dancing venue?’ asked Tim, showing more shock at the suggestion than he knew to be cool.
‘Well, I don’t bloody mean hush hush as in I’m not going to tell you. What would be the point in me having a solution to our problems but not bloody telling you?’ laughed Karl. Neil shot Karl a look of warning. He wished his mate was kinder to Tim. Tim could be a bit square but he was sound and it always made Neil uncomfortable that Karl felt compelled to bully Tim like some sort of bulky schoolboy picking on the tiny kid with glasses. Neil just wanted a quiet pint with his mates, was that too much to ask for? Karl clocked Neil’s warning glance and pulled his neck in. ‘Sorry, mate. I’m being an arse. I’m tetchy. Nagging women. I can’t handle it. What do you say? Bit of tabletop?’
Tim was grateful for the apology and
didn’t want to look like the wet weekend he often felt himself to be. Of course he’d been to strip clubs before. Twice, actually. Both occasions had been stag weekends and of course he could see the attraction. He had eyes and a pulse, didn’t he? But he wasn’t in the habit of frequenting such clubs. They were expensive, for a start, and he and Ali only had a joint bank account, that’s how he knew about the £400 she’d spent in Mothercare. Ali would definitely ask questions if she saw a big transaction at a nightclub.
‘I’d need to get some cash out,’ Tim said.
Neil was stunned by Tim agreeing to Karl’s proposal. He’d been sure Tim would say no, thus saving him the bother and shame of having to say no himself. Neil didn’t want to go to a strip club, not really. He hadn’t been to one for years. He was through that stage, at least he thought he was, but he didn’t want to look like a jerk in front of his mates.
‘Get your coats on,’ he said, feigning considerably more enthusiasm than he felt.
17
Nat had suggested meeting Matthew Jackson at the Royal Festival Hall because ordinarily she never went there any more and she didn’t know anyone who did. It was a place she used to visit a lot, with Matthew, actually. They’d dated for about eight or nine months, some time not long after she’d split from the Hunk.
During those months she had sat through countless concertos and watched as a fair few prodigious conductors led numerous renowned symphony orchestras. She’d never once mentioned that she was tone deaf, there never seemed to be the right moment. That sort of thing ought to be discussed on the first date, after that it was distinctly too late. When Nat had commented on the ‘insight and sensitivity’ of the dynamic partnership between the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the exquisitely talented pianist Mitsuko Uchida, Matt had assumed she possessed a knowledge and understanding that was profoundly beyond her level of expertise. In fact she’d read the ‘insight and sensitivity’ thing in the programme. Men had often assumed things about Nat before, the way men did about all women, and not many of them had been this flattering so it seemed easier to just accept his delight at this pronouncement rather than admit that she would struggle to identify a piece of music beyond which advert it appeared in.
That’s why she’d finished it in the end.
It wasn’t just music. It had been impossible to pretend that she cared about the works of ancient Celtic bards (especially when their mini break to Scotland had been spent in a dusty research hall in a damp library; she’d wanted to take a brisk walk on the beach or drink malt whisky by an open fire). Nor did she care about modern abstract expressionism (which more often than not culminated in an installation that looked like something a Blue Peter presenter had prepared), and she thought street art was graffiti (she was old-fashioned like that). But Matthew did care. He really did. He was so achingly arty and enormously informed that it was impossible to feel anything other than inferior when you were with him. He read the Guardian before breakfast and often dismissed it as ‘light’ and he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of investigational short films directed by emerging Lithuanian talent.
Natalie had forgotten the cold fear she regularly used to experience whenever she was on a date with Matthew, but now as she was sitting in the Royal Festival Hall, with her double espresso before her, she began to remember all too well. It was nonsense that she’d ordered a double espresso. What was she trying to say by picking such a dark and brooding drink? Normally she opted for a latte with extra cream and chocolate sprinkles but she couldn’t bring herself to be herself with Matthew. She never had been able to. She’d always wanted to be more sophisticated, more erudite, more urbane. More.
Matthew was late. He always used to be. Nat had resented it then and she resented it now. She always believed that someone being late was a not-too-discreet way of saying ‘my time is more valuable than yours is’. Nat had already killed ten minutes by examining the glittering colourful stuff in the Festival Hall shop but close inspection uncovered the fact that everything for sale was disappointingly worthy and expensive. What was she doing here? Wouldn’t it make more sense to hop on to the tube and scurry back to Neil?
She glanced around the enormous hall. Nat didn’t want to notice them but she couldn’t help but see a number of tired and earnest couples with small babies. Was this the new and fashionable place to hold post-natal classes? The mothers flopped against the leather sofas in order to breast feed in comfort and then, after the babies had gnawed at their tender knockers, the mothers handed the babies to the fathers, who wore them strapped to their chests like medals. That would be the sort of father Neil would want to be, an actively involved one. The thought made Nat sigh. The truth was, while the men wore the babies as though they were the veterans, it was the women who did the hand-to-hand combat. The women who stood up along the front line. The women who fell.
She looked at the other visitors to the hall and noticed that there were more people wearing glasses than average, few of the women were wearing make-up, although many of the men were, there were lots of hairy types and cyclists and there was a group of twenty-something girls knitting. Broadly speaking, she was a live and let live type. She’d never understood why everyone had got their knickers in a twist when Julia Roberts allowed her underarm hair to grow, but then nor did she criticise if some soap C-lister opted to have the fat sucked out of her arse and plugged into her boobs. Nat’s job had brought her into contact with all sorts of people and she’d learnt to make only one judgement in life. Is this person a well-intentioned human being? Charity and funding came from hairy lefties as well as the pearl and twinset-wearing brigade. But what did slightly depress Nat about the twenty-something girls knitting in the middle of the RFH was that she couldn’t help but think there were better ways to squander one’s youth. They could be getting drunk in a club, or learning to salsa or sitting outside the Houses of Parliament waving a big banner objecting to war and poverty. Had their mothers endured the pains of labour for them to behave like grannies before they’d even lived? Nat fought the urge to dash across to the junior WI meeting and insist that they all rush outside into the dark London night to show the world their youth and vitality. She wanted to tell them that they were mortal and their youth and vitality would insidiously, imperceptibly seep away before they knew it. Wasting it knitting, even in public, was a sin. But she knew there was no point in her trying to tell them this. They wouldn’t believe her. No doubt they believed themselves to be eternal and perpetual.
‘Good to see you. Isn’t this marvellous, just like old times,’ said Matthew.
Nat jumped. She hadn’t noticed him approach but now suddenly he was sitting down opposite her, just the small metal bar table between them. She’d waited thirty minutes for him to arrive but now didn’t feel ready to see him. She didn’t want to see him. He leant across the table and kissed her cheek, left and right. Their noses banged, which was embarrassing, not erotic or intimate. He did not comment whether she had changed or not, as Gary had. It was never his way to notice her external qualities. He believed that even commenting on a pretty coat was beneath him, somehow sexual and inappropriate. She’d have liked to receive a compliment occasionally.
Matthew flashed a broad grin but Nat remembered him well enough to know that he was nervous. His Adam’s apple was quivering rapidly and his fingertips trembled as he unbuttoned his coat and loosened his tie. He must have come straight from work. Matthew looked well. He was tall and athletic, well groomed (as always). He still wore his hair short and there was only the slightest smidge of grey around the temples. He had deep crevasses around his mouth and across his forehead. Nat would have liked to imagine that the lines were laugh lines but she thought it was more likely that they were the result of a constantly furrowed brow, catching endless anxiety and worthiness.
‘So here we are!’ Matthew had his elbows on the table but expanded his arms wide.
‘Yes,’ agreed Nat.
‘After all these years.’
‘Yes.’<
br />
‘Why?’ Matthew was a journalist. He’d written for an arts industry paper when Nat dated him but since then he’d written seriously as a critic in the broadsheets. Occasionally, Nat’s father would point out an article with Matthew’s by-line and comment that it was ‘very interesting’. Of course Matt was going to ask why she had called him and as he was infinitely brighter than Gary, he had not flattered himself that the call was a precursor to a clandestine sexual liaison. Or if he had presumed this was the case, he clearly had a need to have that pertinent discussion upfront.
‘I’m not sure, exactly,’ admitted Nat.
‘Are you dying?’
‘No.’
‘Good. And it’s not your big Three O, we’ve passed that.’
‘Right.’
‘You’re wearing a ring, so not husband hunting.’
‘No.’
‘Are you after my sperm?’
Nat laughed, even though she was pretty sure Matthew wasn’t joking. With his direct line of questioning he’d taken a pickaxe to the icy small talk that might have surrounded this occasion.
‘You’re laughing but you can’t imagine how many women friends of mine have asked me to make a little donation to that particular fund,’ said Matthew, rolling his eyes dramatically.
‘Really?’
‘Really. It’s very London. Now should I get us a drink? Then you can tell me what sort of internal crisis you are having, exactly. A Burgundy, a Bordeaux? I can’t allow you to drink a Chilean Sauvignon, even if they are terrific wines. One has to consider the air miles. Should we go dutch? I’m happy to pay but if it offends your sense of political achievement as a woman, just say so.’
‘Erm.’
‘Fine, you can buy the second bottle,’ said Matthew, already halfway to the bar.
Natalie had not remembered him being so jittery, or funny, come to that – although she would have put money on the fact that he’d be the sort of guy who cared about the carbon footprint of his vino. She racked her brains for something impressive to say when he came back to the table. She wanted to talk about books, or art or music or something similar. Now, the idea of having to explain why she’d called him was the truly terrifying one. Her stomach gurgled with stress. Oh God, he’d think she was a dreary, ‘trip down memory lane’ type. Someone stuck in the past, incapable of moving on. It was not a picture she wanted to draw of herself.