by Mike Gayle
She laughed.
‘And you’re wonderful. I think you’re wonderful, Will.’
‘Goodnight.’
‘Sleep tight.’
Back to reality.
The phone had never looked as lonely as it did when I ended that call. Lying there stiffly in its cradle, after it had had so much life flowing through it, it looked like it was dead rather than dormant. I picked it up and dialled Kate’s number to make sure it was still working but put it down before it had a chance to ring. I felt bleak and empty, as if it wasn’t quite worth the effort to take another breath. In these kinds of situations, I’m embarrassed to say, I often indulged myself in a little fantasy, believing myself to be a tortured poet rather than just a sad git with too much time on his hands. I once wrote fourteen volumes (i.e. fourteen W H Smith exercise books) of oh so very terrible poetry, entitled To Aggi with Love. I put them out for the bin men the week before I came to London as part of the first stage of my New Start policy, which I later abandoned when I realised it meant getting rid of my photo of Aggi too. Fortunately, the urge to conjure up a bit of blank verse for Vol. 15, was beaten to the finish line by the impulse to take a slash.
Before the house was turned into flats, my room had obviously been a large bedroom, part of which Mr Jamal had sectioned off to construct a plasterboard prison otherwise known as my bathroom, which was the reason it didn’t have any windows. So, in order to see what I was doing in the bathroom, I had to switch on a light, which automatically started an extractor fan. I wasn’t dead keen on stinky smells as such, but the extractor fan was the main cause of my flat-inspired frustration; it drove me up the wall. Every time it came on my heart sank. Something inside it was broken, so instead of a gentle hum like a far-off mosquito, I had to endure a sound similar to a tabby in a Moulinex liquidiser, and worse still, the fan continued to extract air – and my patience for that matter – for the next twenty minutes, even after I’d switched the light off. By Wednesday, I was so obsessed with never hearing it again that I attempted crapping in the dark. While it was nice to enjoy the silence, there was something disconcerting about sitting on the toilet, trousers and boxer shorts around ankles, in a darkened room. I once read a newspaper article that said the average rat was quite capable of swimming up a toilet U-bend from the sewer. The thought of coming cheek to cheek with a rodent depressed me so much that, in the end, I saved all bowel movements for the privacy and comfort of the school staff toilets which, I hasten to add, were virtually the same standard as the kids’, but with marginally better quality toilet paper.
While washing my hands in the kitchen sink using a bar of soap I’d found under it, I was suddenly struck by the significance of my actions. The bar of Imperial Leather that I was fondling, caressing and generally playing about with had probably been left here by Kate. Looking at that gorgeous rectangle of glycerine resting in the palm of my hand, I smiled warmly and consciously indulged myself in thoughts of Kate. Five minutes I took over washing my hands – five of the best minutes I’d had all day. When I finally came to my senses (the warm brown water in the tap having reached coffee-making temperature), I began to feel claustrophobic. The walls of the flat weren’t exactly closing in on me, but I did feel incredibly constrained by them. I was in a prison where I had the key, but no reason to use my freedom. I need to go out, I thought. I need to go out to the pub where I can mix with real people instead of the ex-girlfriends who haunt me and strange women at the end of the telephone. Before I could change my mind I was out of the front door.
The public house I had in mind was only ten minutes away from the flat but far enough from Holloway Road not to attract tramps, drunks, nutters or any permutation of all three, which that dreadful stretch of road regurgitated late at night. I’d discovered it earlier on in the week while trying to find out how many off-licences in the area sold Marlboro Lights (answer: none).
It was so cold outside that I was able to watch my breath rise gently in the dark blue sky, so I whiled away the majority of the short journey attempting to defy the laws of nature by blowing smoke rings without smoke. When I reached my destination, the Angel, I stood outside and peered into the huge windows that spanned the side of the building. From what I could see it looked reasonably friendly, by which I mean it wasn’t so empty that I’d feel any more conspicuous than I was already feeling, but not so full that I’d feel like a loser even before I walked in the door.
I’d never felt the need to go to a pub on my own before. There had always been someone to go for a drink with, even if it was only Simon or friends from my teaching course. My experience of what I was about to do was strictly second-hand, and yet I felt quite confident, having watched one too many American movies where sad (in both senses of the word) men in trilbys drown their private sorrows in public bars, talk drunkenly to bar-tenders, and offer to buy wanton women (they were always wanton) drinks because it’s their birthday even though it isn’t. Well it was as good as my birthday, and as I pushed my way through the swing doors into the lounge area, I hoped the next hour would offer me an interesting chat with a barmaid or two, a couple of pints to take the Edge off life and, of course, my allotted quota of wanton women.
I tried not to meet anyone’s eyes as I made my way to the bar, but I couldn’t help looking at a couple of denim-clad Heavy Metal-type blokes playing pool noisily in the corner of the room. Their significant others were sitting at a table behind them, casting the odd glance at the table but essentially more interested in their nails than in who was winning. I felt sorry for these women, not because they’d made such poor choices in their love-life, but because they were both probably really happy. Vicki Hollingsworth Syndrome was everywhere. Sometimes I got the feeling I was the only person in the world wondering if there was a meaning to life, and people like these girls were undermining my faith that it was a question worth finding an answer to. Maybe I should ask them if they’re happy, I thought.
Or maybe I should just shut my mouth and get a drink.
Two men were being served at the bar as I got there. Bald Bloke on my left was being served by Weasel Man (features too small, beard too thick) while Bomber Jacket Boy on my right was being served by a woman whom I was instantly attracted to. She wasn’t my usual type – by this I suppose I mean that she didn’t look like Aggi – she was some considerable years my senior and far more womanly than any female I had ever known. She looked a lot like Kim Wilde in her Kids in America phase – all blonde highlights and heavy make-up, yet strangely lithe and earnest but, of course, a lot older. I want to be served by her, I decided. I need to be served by her.
Weasel Man was pulling two pints of bitter while Archway Kim Wilde was serving two pints of lager. They were both neck and neck, which depressed me greatly; if Bald Bloke got his pints first, I decided, I was definitely going to be upset.
Plan A
Weasel Man finishes first.
Pretend to tie shoelaces until he finds something else to occupy himself with.
Failing that, head for the Gents’ and try again later.
Plan B
Archway Kim Wilde finishes first.
Ask what bitter she recommends and then order a pint of it.
Engage her in conversation at every opportunity but play it cool.
Archway Kim Wilde finished her pints first. I nearly let out a whoop of joy, which would’ve been premature because Bomber Jacket Boy, obviously a student, was holding her back from the finish line by fishing about in his pocket for change. Bald Bloke had handed Weasel Man a crisp tenner and received his change before Bomber Jacket Boy had even finished counting out his coppers. I’d turned towards the toilets, already attempting to convince my bladder that it needed to go, when Bald Bloke turned back to the bar and said to Weasel Man, ‘Oh, and a pack of ready salted crisps, please.’
I glanced hopefully at Archway Kim Wilde as Bomber Jacket Boy walked away from the bar with his two pints.
Hurrah!
Her: What can I get you?
Me: A pint of bitter, please.
Her: Which would you like?
Me: Which would you recommend?
Her: I don’t know, I don’t drink bitter. Most people like the Griddlingtones though.
Me: A pint of that then.
Her? Nothing. Not another word. Not even when I gave her the money. What a miserable cow. I wondered whether a tip would change her mind but as I’d only given her two pound coins I strongly doubted whether she would’ve been all that impressed. She didn’t even look at me when she gave me my change because she was too busy smiling at a new bald bloke now standing at the bar smoking a thin cigar. Out of the corner of my eye I angrily looked him up and down. He was wearing a grey leather blouson jacket, the type which you only ever see in clothes catalogues, and a pair of grey trousers which were the epitome of the word ‘slacks’. I wondered, if it came to violence, whether I stood a chance. As he moved his hand to his mouth to take a deep drag on his cigar, the tattoo across his knuckles which read ‘ACAB’, drained me of my entire stock of bravado. She chatted to him about football: goading him playfully about West Bromwich Albion’s recent performance while he in turn cast aspersions on Spurs. I listened to him crack an abysmal ‘joke’ about a rabbit going into a bar, which had Archway Kim Wilde on the verge of wetting her knickers, before I decided to leave them to it.
I looked for a seat well away from the bar because I was scared I might ‘say’ something in a casual glance, offensive enough to get my head kicked in. I ended up sitting next to the fruit machine and the door to the Ladies’. I settled myself down and searched for my fags and then sighed as I realised I’d forgotten them. I stared at my solitary pint, the head of which was already beginning to go flat. For the first time in over a year I felt like crying. Not big, manly tears like the soldiers who had faced death, pain and man’s inhumanity to man in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, but small childish tears that didn’t make sense and didn’t need a reason; the kind mums have an incredible knack of wiping away so well that it almost seems like they never existed.
The table in front of me was bare. No cigarette butts, empty glasses or crisp packets. It would be obvious to everyone in the pub that I was here Alone. I didn’t even have the energy to go into the pretence of being early for a date. It was written all over my face anyway: ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow. I have no friends. I hate my job. I can’t get over my ex-girlfriend. Shun me. For I am a latter-day leper.’
This, I thought to myself, I can safely say is the lowest point in my life. As if to prove this proposition I began to search through my mental catalogue of disasters.
• Losing my Action Man at the age of six.
• Accidentally leaving my Maths homework at home when I was thirteen.
• Failing my O-level French at sixteen.
• Being dumped by Aggi at the age of twenty-three.
In five minutes that was all I could come up with. I felt something was wrong, they were all a bit obvious, really. None of them seemed depressing enough, even though I’d been devastated by them all at the time. I’d made myself immune to them by thinking about them so much that they had ceased to have any effect on me. There were other thoughts, however, thoughts floating around my head, locked away in boxes marked ‘Do Not Open. Ever’ and abandoned on the less-travelled byways of my mind. Things which I hadn’t forgotten but had instead simply learned to ignore. I couldn’t do it with large-scale events like Aggi’s dumping me – only small things that were easily hidden. These tiny thoughts were like stagnant pools that would only smell if the horrors putrefying in their deeper waters were disturbed.
I took a sip of flat bitter and dived in.
Stagnant Pool No. 1 (Eau de Abandonment)
Dad left us when I was about nine. (About the same time that Action Man went MIA. Although I don’t think the two events were connected.) And if I’m being honest he didn’t just leave us, he ‘went to live with another lady’, which was how I put it to Simon the following Monday on my way to school. My parents had thought they’d protected me from potential psychological damage caused in the build-up to this event by cloaking their bitterest arguments in geniality, as if I was too stupid to work out what was going on. Then one Saturday morning Mum took me and Tom to Crestfield Park. On the way she bought me a brand new plastic football that had all the signatures of the England football team printed on it – I knew they hadn’t really signed it but I was impressed nonetheless. Tom didn’t get anything because at fourteen months old he wasn’t capable of making her feel guilty.
When we got home all of Dad’s things were gone. I asked Mum where Dad was and she said he’d gone to live with another lady and then began crying. As young as I was, I could see that she hadn’t dealt with the situation very well at all. For the next three months I saw my dad every other weekend, when we’d go to the park or eat chips in a café in town, and then one day I arrived home to discover he’d moved all his stuff back in and everything returned to normal.
Then last year my mum announced that she wanted a divorce. She said she’d got tired of being somebody’s wife and wanted to be herself. Dad said it was all for the best, then three days later moved out. They were really laid-back about it, as if it was something Tom and I should’ve been happy about.
Stagnant Pool No. 2 (Eau de Paternity)
A new entry.
This morning I was nearly a father. This evening I’m still just a loser.
I couldn’t help but feel that I’d lost out on something. It was like I’d caught a glimpse of another place – a place that didn’t look as depressing as the one I was in – a place that looked like heaven.
Stagnant Pool No. 3 (Eau de Fidelity)
Aggi’s infidelity had completely thrown me. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. Talking to Kate had taken my mind off it for a while but now this thought was back and refusing to be ignored, boxed away or submerged: I had the best time of my life with her. Does her cheating on me mean I have to throw it all away? Kate’s right. Is love really love if only one of you believes in it?
10.23 P.M.
I didn’t much feel like finishing my pint now. I couldn’t quite see the point. I was perilously close to crying in a public space. If I’d been a woman I would’ve had the right, culturally speaking, to nip into the Ladies’, find a comfortable stall, pull off a few sheets of loo roll and have a good bawl. The best on offer in the masculine world was the smell of carbolic and stale urine as found in the Gents’ – not really my idea of a comforting environment. I went in there anyway, just to get away from humanity for a while. To pass the time and give myself an excuse for being there, I took a leak, concentrating the contents of my bladder on a crushed fag packet in a valiant effort to make it move.
I returned to my table to see a young, trendy-looking couple hovering by it predatorially, their faces wildly exaggerating the effort it took to hold a pint glass and stand up at the same time. Ignoring them, I sat down and finished my pint. I considered lingering just to annoy them, but I still felt like crying, so instead I made ready to leave, casting a last glance in Archway Kim Wilde’s direction that said: ‘This is your last chance, babe. I’m walking out that door now and I ain’t ever coming back.’ My visual reprimand went unheeded – the delights of serving watery beer to the dead-beat regulars of the Angel were obviously more alluring. The trendy couple virtually threw themselves in my seat.
Walking back home through the debris of Henmarsh council estate, I kept my eyes glued to the pavement, scanning for dog crap. I didn’t know anything about this estate, but the graffiti, up-turned dustbins, discarded armchairs and occasional syringes provided sufficient evidence that this one was as dangerous as any I had come across in Nottingham or Manchester. I was, of course, classic mugging material: four-eyed, weak-willed and middle-class with a cash-card. It was a wonder there weren’t queues of long-limbed teenage miscreants waiting to take a swing at me. Although I was feeling apathetic towards most aspects of my life at this mome
nt (including personal safety), getting beaten-up, I reasoned, wouldn’t exactly improve my frame of mind and so I speeded up my pace.
Just before I reached my road I spotted the pale light of an off-licence, tucked behind a row of shops that I had somehow managed to miss on my Get To Know Your Locale tour of Archway. On a whim I entered and purchased the following:
2 packets of salt and vinegar Hula Hoops.
1 packet of barbecue beef Hula Hoops.
1 box of Swan Vestas.
1 bottle of tequila.
1 small bottle of lemonade Panda Pop.
1 bottle Perrier (sparkling).
I paid for the booty on my credit card, because the man at the till didn’t have one of those swipe machine things, so I figured that he wouldn’t be able to tell that I’d reached my card limit. Anyway, save for the thirty-seven pence change I’d received from Archway Kim Wilde, I didn’t have any real cash on me.
Plastic bags in hand, I made my way to 64 Cumbria Avenue, where I was welcomed by the cheery glow of a naked electric bulb emanating through the net curtains of the front ground floor flat. Peering through the window as I walked along the front path, all I could distinguish were the vague outlines of a man and woman sitting at a table, possibly eating.
Inside my flat nothing had changed. The answering machine had no answers on it and the flat, with my clothing strewn everywhere, looked like the community centre jumble sale from hell. I turned off the lights and fell onto the bed, hoping beyond hope that the day had been sufficiently exhausting for me to fall asleep before my brain could kick into gear again. Meanwhile, some twelve feet underneath me, the man in the flat below whom I’d seen dining turned his quiet meal for two into a very loud meal for two. I listened as a record needle was dragged across side one of Led Zeppelin’s Houses of The Holy. (I recognised it immediately. Once when Simon’s parents kicked him out briefly after they’d caught him smoking dope in his bedroom, he’d slept on my bedroom floor for a month until they took him back. Houses of The Holy was the only record he listened to.) When the ‘DJ’ finally left the needle to rest, Jimmy Page’s amazing guitar-smithery was immediately interrupted by a slow, steady knocking – the unmistakable sound of headboard against wall. With nowhere to run or hide, I resigned myself to depression once more. I felt around on the floor in the dark until I found a mug that at some point during the week had contained Vimto, and after locating my tequila poured some of it in. I took a sip, switched on the radio and turned up The Barbara White Show until it was loud enough to reduce Mr Doing-it Downstairs’ sexual workout to no more than a gentle thud.