Beta Male

by Iain Hollingshead

  Well, there were many answers to that question. One, as I have already mentioned, was that I didn’t think it was fair for her to be jealous when she had moved on significantly more quickly than me. Another was that I was quite enjoying playing around with her friend at the time, partly to spite her. And the third – and most important – reason was that my life was far too complicated as it was without meeting up with Lisa alone. I had a sneaking suspicion that her marriage to Timothy James wasn’t going all that well – he wasn’t here with her tonight, for starters – and the last thing I wanted was to deal with the ex-sex that might have followed an encounter à deux. Ex-sex always seems like a good idea at the time – it’s often the best idea ever at the time: all the excitement of an unexpected one-night stand with all the familiarity of someone who knows what you like – but all it does in the long run is re-open deep and festering wounds.

  These were all truthful reasons, but I wasn’t sure Lisa really wanted the truth so I simply lied and said that my phone hadn’t been working very well. Lisa, it would seem, actually did want the truth, though, because she took my lame lie as an excuse to open deep and festering wounds of our own by revisiting our relationship, most of which was now over three years old, and mentioning every mistake I’d made. How could anyone have such a forensic memory, I wondered, as she pointed out all the bad things I had done and said, and all the nice things I hadn’t done and said. This post mortem – made doubly painful by the fact I was still alive – came so out of the blue that I changed the subject by asking her about her marriage, which was also a mistake because it set her off on another tirade about how the whole thing was completely overrated.

  ‘I think I’ve got bride depression,’ she said, eventually.

  ‘And what’s that?’ I asked wearily, hoping that this, at least, wasn’t my fault.

  ‘It’s a new condition I’ve read about which affects newly-wedded women who put too much store on getting married. They plan the wedding itself for so long that they imagine married life to be an endless continuation of champagne, white dresses and dancing. Then reality bites and it’s forty years of sharing the housework, fighting over the remote control and hosting joint dinner parties at which you embarrass, bore and infuriate one another in equal measures.’

  I laughed, which made Lisa laugh as well. ‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ she said, touching my arm. ‘I bet you’re really glad you’re not married to me.’

  I shrugged. There wasn’t really a right answer to that one. ‘Yes’ was too hurtful. ‘No’ was too dangerous. Anyway, there was a mountain of evidence – a ring, a wedding, a new name – to suggest we might just have left it too late. Fortunately, Lisa ploughed on before I had to say anything: ‘And I’m glad I’m not married to you, either. No, it’s Tim for me. Till death do us part. Preferably his.’ She laughed again, falsely this time. ‘No, I don’t mean that. It’s just that I still care about you, Sam. You’re fun. You’re nice, sometimes. And that’s why I want you to be happy.’

  ‘But you didn’t want me to be happy with Mary?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You warned me off her when I rang to ask you about her. It comes to the same thing.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘Are you jealous?’

  ‘A little.’

  Ha, I thought. I’ve made her say it out loud.

  She continued: ‘But mainly I warned you off because Mary’s a bit of a psycho.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, she uses people. And she’s a faker as well. I saw it on that course the vicar made us go on. You see, her father… ’

  Just as Lisa appeared to be on the verge of actually saying something interesting, I had to stop her. Over her left shoulder I could see Mary herself approaching, arm-in-arm with Stock Market Christian.

  Stock Market Christian got to us first. ‘Brother!’ he exclaimed, embracing me.

  ‘Brother?’ I recovered quickly. ‘Brother! What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘I was involved in a litigation case with Jess once and we stayed in touch.’

  Jesus, it was a small world of objectionable people in London. Maybe this sort of thing could only happen at engagement parties, where a hundred people’s complex lives all cram together into one confined space, living proof of six uncomfortable degrees of separation.

  Stock Market Christian continued: ‘I haven’t seen you at church for a while, Sam. Where have you been?’

  ‘Oh, you know, praying, meditating, fasting. Christ is the Church, you know, and not just in church. He is everywhere.’ I placed my hand on my heart. ‘He is here.’ I placed it over Mary’s breast. ‘He is here, too.’ Mary smiled sweetly. Stock Market Christian scowled so I placed it over his firm pectoral muscle as well. ‘And here, too, of course.’

  Lisa stood next to me, open-mouthed. ‘Sam, what the fuck are you playing at?’ she demanded, when she was finally able to speak. ‘And don’t even think about putting your hand on my tit.’

  I lowered my hand and decided I’d had quite enough of Lisa’s questions. All things considered, this was an excellent time to go to the toilet. Having kissed Mary chastely hello, I started to work my way through the crowd, leaving Stock Market Christian to explain to Lisa the biblical significance of the FTSE’s downturn: ‘We just have to pray extra hard that none of us is denied a bonus, even as Peter denied our Lord before the rooster crowed… ’

  I let the voice of hypocrisy fade out and focused instead on Alan, who was making his way towards me through the crowded bar, his arms outstretched in preparation for the biggest man-hug of our lives.

  ‘Mate,’ I said, because that was all that needed to be said.

  He mumbled something back, his voice muffled by my shirt.

  ‘I’m very glad you could make it,’ said Alan after we’d held the hug a little too long and started to worry it might look a bit gay (surely, by the time you reach your own engagement party, you shouldn’t worry about people thinking you’re gay?).

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ I said.

  ‘And now you’re here, I wondered if you might be able to say a few words later,’ Alan continued. ‘You know how Jess isn’t that keen on having you here and so on, but if you were just able to say a few nice things about her at her engagement party, I’m sure it would make everything okay.’

  I smiled and accepted readily. The night might have started with a haranguing from an ex-girlfriend, and a vaguely awkward encounter with someone in a category all of her own, but it was finally picking up. Matt and Debbie joined us and enquired about Rosie, whom Alan said he was still dying to meet. Ed arrived late, with Claire, and was met with much good-natured joshing about whether she’d had to unchain him from Downing Street’s railings. I also chatted to Alan’s mum for a while and told her that she should give her son a break. On the other side of the room, I could see Jess surrounded by a group of friends, smiling and laughing. I would say some very nice things about her, I resolved. I had got fairly good at lying by now.

  At half past ten, when the room was well lubricated and the party in full swing, Alan handed me a microphone and I clambered onto the bar so I could see everyone. To my surprise, and slight annoyance, the first thing I noticed was Ed and Claire snogging in the front row. What was that all about? I decided to ignore them even though I could feel my face flushing. I had just started to say some pleasant lies about Jess – how we hadn’t lost a friend but gained a new one – when I looked up and saw Matt’s horrified expression. I knew that what I was saying was untrue, not to mention a little bit naff, but surely it wasn’t that bad. I stumbled on with my speech and then looked up again. Matt wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the door. I followed his gaze. Rosie had just walked in, closely followed by Alan’s boss, Amanda.

  ‘Sam Hunt, you’re a lying bastard!’ shouted Rosie across the bar. She didn’t need a microphone.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I blustered lamely across the loudspeakers. ‘We appear t
o have a heckler. Perhaps security could deal with them. Security. SECURITY.’

  But neither security nor wild horses could stop Rosie. Even as fear gripped my stomach, I found myself thinking how magnificent she looked, full of righteous anger and feminine determination. I would never meet a woman like this again, I thought. I never deserved to meet a woman like this again.

  ‘This man seduced me under a false name,’ she cried out. ‘He pretended to be something he wasn’t so he could move in with me. He stole money in order to pay an invoice – ’

  ‘An invoice?’ called out Mary from the middle of the crowd. ‘How much for?’

  ‘Five thousand pounds,’ said Rosie.

  ‘You lying shit, Sam Hunt!’ shouted Mary. ‘I thought you liked me. I thought you liked my family.’

  The two girls looked at each other, momentarily unsure whether to fight each other or fight me, the lying shit. The sisterhood won. They started to push their way through the crowd, screaming hysterically, Mary brandishing her champagne flute as a weapon. In other circumstances, I might have been amused to see two girls fight over me. Not this time. This was dreadful. This was Rosie. This was Alan’s engagement party.

  I put down the microphone with a quick apology and started to make my way through the crowd. I had to get out of there. But the crowd didn’t seem inclined to let me leave. They wanted me to get my just deserts. Part of me wanted me to get my just deserts as well. Cathartic punishment. Start from the beginning again. Do it right this time.

  Or maybe the crowd just wanted to see a fight. Strong arms reached out to grab me. Someone – I swear it was Stock Market Christian – even threw a surreptitious punch. The fact it was an engagement party seemed to have been forgotten.

  In the confusion, someone else had been forgotten, too. Making her way to the bar, Amanda picked up the microphone and tapped on it twice to check it was working. ‘Hello and good evening,’ she said. The crowd fell silent. Stock Market Christian stopped hitting me. ‘I won’t take up too much of your time,’ Amanda continued. ‘It would be nice to see you continue to lynch that man. He came to our office party this summer and behaved very naughtily, so I’m not all that fond of him, either. But if Sam’s not up to making a proper speech, at least someone should.’

  Everyone looked at me and then back at Amanda. She had clearly been drinking, but her eyes had lost none of their calculating intelligence. I had no more idea than anyone else what was going on.

  ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I think we’re forgetting the real reason we’re here, which is the happy couple, of course.’ She gestured at Alan, who looked as white as a sheet. ‘Now, I know Alan fairly well, having had the pleasure of working with him for the past few years, just over the road here. So I can safely say that Jess is a very lucky woman, not least because – ’

  ‘No!’ shouted Alan. ‘This isn’t true. I won’t let you get away with this.’

  ‘What isn’t true, Alan?’ replied Amanda, calmly.

  ‘I knew it!’ yelled a tearful Jess.

  Amanda replaced the microphone on its stand as Alan made his way up to the bar to grab it from her. ‘Don’t worry, Alan,’ whispered Amanda. Her voice was no longer amplified, but those of us near the front could still hear her; the room stood in stunned, embarrassed silence. ‘Jess will probably forgive you. After all, she’ll have to forgive herself for last night.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ said Alan, finally arriving next to her.

  ‘Oh, Alan. Did Jess not tell you about Sam?’

  Some people have recurring nightmares in which they’re naked in the middle of a crowded street, or stuck in an examination room without knowing any of the answers. Mine used to be standing alone on a stage in front of a packed audience and forgetting all my lines. But ever since the night of Alan’s engagement party, the only thing that can make me wake up sweaty and screaming in the dead of night is the vivid and horribly real recollection of what happened after Amanda said those words.

  I tried to shout back my case, of course. It was one thing to face one’s deserved, cathartic comeuppance, quite another to be accused, publicly and falsely, of sleeping with your best friend’s fiancée. But it was all to no avail. Why should anyone believe me? I had hardly revealed myself to be a model of propriety that evening. Amanda’s accusations were passed around the room in a rapid chain of Chinese whispers that didn’t even need embellishing. The party descended again into a cacophony of shouts and chaos. At one point I remember catching sight of Alan’s tearful face and realising that even he didn’t believe me. All this must have finally made sense to him. That was why I had never got on well publicly with Jess, he must have been thinking. We were hiding our secret lust.

  As for what anyone else was thinking, I’m really not sure because the rule of the mob had taken over. Drinks rained down liberally on my head. A few people shoved me. One tried to trip me up. ‘Slag,’ called out someone. Other shouts rhymed with my surname. ‘I fucking hate you!’ screamed Rosie, looking as though she meant it. ‘You’ve got a tiny cock,’ added Lisa for good measure, her face contorted with rage. If they could have buried me in the sand and stoned me to death, I think they would have.

  Well, screw this, I thought. Screw all of this. I’m done. I’m out of here. And so I flailed and jostled and shoved my way out of that basement hellhole, out into the street above and past the astute gorilla on the door, who smiled apologetically, perhaps for failing so spectacularly to do his job, and asked if the people who desperately didn’t want me to be at the party had won.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ruefully. ‘They appeared to be in the majority.’

  He waved down a cab for me to take home. I climbed into it gratefully, before realising I had neither money nor home. The driver threw me out at the end of the street and I spent the night on a park bench, as remorseful as I was angry, as cold as I was completely and utterly alone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I’ve had some long, dark nights of the soul before, but nothing that compared to that wintry park bench. By 3am I was worried that I might actually die. By 4am I was worried that I might not die. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see Alan’s shocked, white face. The distant rumble of traffic became Amanda’s low, mocking laugh. And whenever I remembered Rosie’s look of righteous betrayal, I wept warm, uncontrollable tears of loss and self-loathing.

  By the time dawn broke, cold, grey and forbidding, I had resolved to do whatever was necessary to sort out the mess I had created. This was not about my happiness any more, I realised. I’d tried to make myself happy, and look where that had got me. My happiness could go hang, for all I cared. No, this was about everyone else’s. It was about righting wrongs. It was about apologising – to Alan, Jess, Amanda, Rosie, Mary, Lisa, Mr Money-Barings. There were so many apologies. And once I had said sorry – and meant it – to everyone I had ever met, I would give the clothes on my back to charity and go and live in a monastery somewhere for the rest of my days.

  But it’s all very well having good intentions – I’ve spent my entire life having good intentions – it’s quite another thing to carry them out. I slumped back down into a frozen ball on the bench. Was this where it all ended, then? I had no money, no job, no home and, it seemed, precious few friends. My phone had beeped incessantly throughout the night with messages of foul abuse – much of it warranted – which provided me with a small, unexpected token of comfort. The more everyone chastised me for the way I’d behaved, the more I realised just how indefensible my behaviour had been. I bathed in their loathing and my self-loathing. I heaped their opprobrium on my own head and used it to subject myself to the fiercest of cross-examinations. What had I been thinking? Had I really believed such a deceit was sustainable? In what possible way was my behaviour morally justifiable? What had started out as a prank – a bet – had come to a disastrous end, hurting real people with real emotions. I’d once told Ed that it was all one big game; I was wrong. This isn’t a fucking play any more, Sam, I r
emonstrated with myself. This is real fucking life.

  On a selfish note, it hadn’t worked out particularly well for me either, had it?

  I could deal with the warranted abuse, then. They couldn’t match me for that. What I couldn’t bear was the torrent of bile for something I hadn’t done. It offended me to the core that anyone – least of all my friends – could believe I’d slept with Jess. It offended me because she wasn’t very attractive. But most of all, it offended me because I would never do that to Alan. I haven’t even slept with any of my mate’s exes (even when one of Matt’s, who was a definite nine and a half out of ten, asked me to). I have strict rules about this sort of thing. Friends come first.

  I got off my bench and started to jog around the park to thaw myself out. What did Alan think? That was the important thing. That was the crux of the matter. Did he believe what Amanda had said? Surely he didn’t believe a word of anything she said, I thought, perking up as my brain started to thaw. She was an inveterate liar and manipulator. And if it wasn’t true about his sleeping with Amanda, then he must realise that what she’d said about my sleeping with Jess wasn’t true either. Surely he would see reason. Yes! I took out my mobile to call Alan. No! The abuse had overloaded the battery and it had given up the ghost. So I jogged for a solid twenty minutes until I managed to find a public phone box. Like the tramp that I was, I reversed the charges to Alan’s mobile, the one number I knew by heart.

  To my surprise, he accepted the operator’s request.

  ‘Sam?’ said Alan. ‘Where are you calling from?’

  ‘My mobile’s dead so I had to go to a phone box.’

  Alan grunted.

  ‘Actually, mate, you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a phone box these days,’ I babbled, skirting a little around the main issue. ‘Everyone’s got mobiles, I suppose. But at least you can still reverse the charges. I didn’t know you could still do that, did you? After we’ve finished chatting, I’m going to try and get some Polish lessons, a part-time job in IT and a sensual massage with a happy ending.’