My Legendary Girlfriend

by Mike Gayle

  I thought about school and Alec Healey in year-eleven, the most evil child I had come across so far.

  I was still happy.

  I thought about the worksheets that I had to do by third period on Monday morning.

  And I was still happy.

  I thought about Archway and all the dog crap therein.

  And I was still happy.

  I thought about my twenty-sixth birthday and how as of today I was officially nearer to thirty than twenty.

  And I was still happy.

  I thought about all the money I owed the bank and even added two years’ worth of student loans plus an extra year for my teacher training.

  And I was still happy.

  Then I thought about Aggi.

  4.17 P.M.

  Here’s the scene: I’m sitting on the sofa bed with the phone in my hand pointed at my temple as if it’s a loaded weapon I’m about to use to blow my brains out.

  Before reaching this stage, I had spent a considerable amount of time – in between peaks and troughs of maudlin inactivity – agonising over what I was about to do. In the end, like most major decisions in my life, I made a list, hoping logic would throw up a reason to hold back.

  Three reasons why I should phone Aggi

  1. I think I’m feeling something for Kate. Something that’s got an air of permanence about it. If I get involved with her now it’s going in one direction. Forever. Kate could be everything I’ve ever wanted. I don’t want to lose her now. I owe it to myself to put a full stop at the end of this thing between me and Aggi. No other kind of punctuation will do.

  2. Deep down I’m not even 100 per cent sure I still love Aggi. This thing between Simon and her has only highlighted what I would’ve known if I’d been paying attention – that maybe I don’t actually love her any more. Maybe I am over her. Maybe I’ve blown her importance out of proportion. In my head she’s become this huge thing – My Legendary Girlfriend. If I don’t find out what she really means to me, how am I ever going to be sure I’m over her?

  3. I can’t think of another reason. I don’t think any more reasons exist.

  Three reasons why I shouldn’t phone Aggi

  1. I may discover that the reality lives up to the legend and then I’ll want her back more than ever but she still won’t want me.

  2. If I make a decision based on how she reacts to me, doesn’t that mean that she wins again? I don’t want to turn Kate into a runner-up prize. She deserves better than that.

  3. It’s just a bad idea. And if there’s one thing that I’ve learned it’s that bad ideas should just stay bad ideas.

  The last in-depth news I’d heard about Aggi’s whereabouts was from her oldest school friend, Sally. When Aggi and I had split up Sally, overcome with compassion, had informed me that even though I was no longer with Aggi, she really did want to remain friends. Seizing the opportunity to have a mole within Aggi’s ranks, I took up the offer and went for a drink with her despite the fact that she was exceptionally dull. She worked as a computer systems analyst, but never spoke about computers, as her real passion was fell walking, a subject which she could, and indeed did, talk about for hours on end. In between discussions endured on the merits of various youth hostels in the Lake District, I would pump her mercilessly for information on Aggi, which was forthcoming, up to a point – she never spoke about Aggi’s personal life. According to the last Sally update, given some time after Easter, Aggi had moved to London after securing a job as a junior press officer for Amnesty International and was living ‘somewhere in Barnes’ (Sally would be no more specific than that). There was no point in asking Sally for Aggi’s number, although I’d endured more hiking talk than I’m sure my ex-girlfriend ever had, for Sally’s loyalties lay with Aggi. Instead, I called Aggi’s mum and asked her for the number. I could hear the worry in her voice when she heard my request. ‘The Calling Round The House Drunk Episode’ was probably still as fresh in her mind as ever. Whatever her misgivings, she gave me the number, although it saddened me greatly to hear the doubt in her voice. Before ending the call, she asked me what I was up to. The fact that I was a teacher not only impressed her but seemed to make her more relaxed. The last thing she said to me was, ‘You will take care, won’t you, dear?’ She meant it too.

  I am not feeling confident about this at all.

  I dialled. The phone rang five or six times.

  ‘Hello?’

  It was a male voice that had all the authority of someone who earned three times as much as I do. I also noted traces of solicitor who spends his weekends playing rugby.

  ‘Hello,’ I said in a thinly disguised, well-spoken voice. ‘I’d like to speak to Aggi if I may.’

  ‘She’s in the kitchen,’ he gruffed. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘Tell her it’s Simon,’ I said, reasoning that it would be sheer folly to say, ‘Tell her it’s Will, her ex-boyfriend. She’s probably told you about me. No, I’m not the one with the stupid Morrissey glasses. I’m the one who is completely off his rocker.’

  ‘Hi, Simon,’ said Aggi warmly. ‘What a surprise!’

  ‘Look, Aggi, it’s not Simon, it’s me,’ I confessed.

  She paused, briefly stunned, but bounced straight back totally unfazed. She was good at this.

  ‘Hello, Will,’ she said calmly. ‘How are you? And why are you pretending to be Simon?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I nervously twiddled the phone cord around my wrist. ‘How are you? You all right?’

  ‘Oh, not too bad,’ she sighed. ‘Work’s really busy but that’s the way I like it. What are you doing with yourself these days?’

  ‘I’ve moved to London,’ I said coldly. I didn’t want her to think this was leading up to some sort of ‘Why don’t we meet up for a drink’ type of proposal. This was strictly business.

  ‘Oh really, where abouts?’ she asked.

  I was about to drive my mental removal van to somewhere more upmarket when I told the truth. ‘I’ve got a place in Archway. It’s only temporary. Flat 3, 64 Cumbria Avenue.’ Saying it aloud made it sound less of a hovel than it was. If it hadn’t been in Archway, the toilet of the universe, she might have been impressed.

  ‘I know it,’ said Aggi. ‘A friend of mine used to live in Leyland Avenue, which runs parallel to your road. She was broken into thirteen times in four years.’

  Defeated, I changed subjects. ‘I teach English at a comprehensive over in Wood Green.’ I lit up a cigarette. ‘I doubt if you’d know it. It’s pretty small. Five hundred kids tops.’ I inhaled and coughed violently as if I’d never had one before. ‘Sorry about that. I’m just recovering from the flu.’ I coughed again, this time a little less abrasively. ‘Where were we? Yeah. English teacher. That’s me.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked abruptly.

  ‘Because you must be good at it. I always said you’d make a great teacher.’

  I grew impatient. We were pretending to be old friends who spoke regularly on the phone. It was disturbing me greatly, because if there was one thing I was certain of, it was that I wasn’t her sodding friend.

  She was prepared to let the conversation drift along until I got to the point. I took control. ‘I can’t do this right now. Was that your boyfriend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you in love?’

  She finally lost her cool. ‘What’s it to you, Will? Three years and you still know how to drive me up the wall. What do you want? You don’t really honestly want to know, do you?’

  ‘No,’ I replied calmly, hoping that the serenity of my denial was needling her. ‘I don’t, but you want to tell me, don’t you?’

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘just tell me, okay?’

  Playing me at my own game, she calmed down.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose I do,’ she said. ‘We get on well. We have a lot in common . . .’

  I interrupted. ‘Like?’

  ‘You want a list?’ She w
as angry now. ‘Well, we both like being part of the human race. We both like taking things as they come. Neither of us are obsessives. We both realise there’s more to life than what’s on TV. We both like to have a laugh. We both know where we’re going. We’re prepared to give each other space. We both want to do what we can to fight injustice. Do you want me to carry on?’

  The only thing I could think of to say was: ‘A match made in heaven.’ It was an empty, facile statement. It didn’t make me feel better.

  Aggi’s tone changed. No longer fired by anger – instead it was powered by sympathy. Not sympathy for me, but for the man she had been in love with all that time ago. ‘Will, are you drunk? I know it’s your birthday. Why are you ringing me today of all days?’

  ‘Because.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Yeah, because.’

  Her patience finally ran out. ‘I’m going to put the phone down. I’d really like it if you didn’t phone me again.’

  ‘No,’ I said sulkily. I flicked a long stem of ash from my cigarette onto the carpet. ‘I’m going to put the phone down.’

  ‘You’re being childish.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment coming from you.’ I stubbed the cigarette out against the side of the bed. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t phone you again. I’ve got what I wanted.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘To topple you off that pedestal I put you on,’ I said confidently, ‘and baby you’re gonna come crashing down!’

  She put the phone down.

  Looking back at the conversation I like to think that I won – use of the word ‘baby’ without the faintest degree of irony notwithstanding – I mean, I got quite a few blows in, I thought. But deep down, as always, it was Aggi who had won. She hadn’t given me a second thought in the last three years. I didn’t mean anything to her at all. And this was the first time I had really understood this. I’d spent nearly three years of my life with her and she’d binned them without a second thought. I bet she can’t even remember getting off with Simon, I thought to myself. Why hadn’t I asked her about Simon? That would’ve scored me some points.

  I felt relieved. In a way I couldn’t believe I’d carried a torch for her this far – I should have used it to set fire to her years ago. For three years it had been my constant hope that one day she would come back to me. I had even purposely chosen relationships that I knew would have a limited shelf-life because I wanted to be able to dump them at the drop of a hat – at the first sign from Aggi. I never wanted any of them. I just didn’t want to be alone. I was a user. At school being called a ‘user’ was the third worst insult, only surpassed in grievousness by ‘. . . and your mum’ and ‘No mates’. It meant you didn’t like people for who they were but what you could get from them. In a way I suppose I’d used Aggi. I got someone to listen to me moan about life, watch episodes of Blackadder with, someone to kiss when I needed warmth, someone to understand me and someone to make it All Right when everything was All Wrong. She got nothing. She was my Legendary Girlfriend but I wasn’t her Legendary Boyfriend. And it was only now that it was too late that I realised this.

  I called her back. Her boyfriend answered.

  ‘Is Aggi there?’ I asked, completely unsure of what it was I was going to say to her.

  ‘She’s in the bathroom. Look, who is this? Is this Will?’

  There was little point in lying. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve really upset her, you offensive piece of crap. I’ve a good mind to come round to your place and beat some politeness into you.’

  I lost the plot. ‘You don’t know what an evil bitch she is. You don’t know. But you will. You’ll find out when she sleeps with your rugby playing mates. She’s probably already started on the scrum half. Then it’ll be the tight head prop, then the loose head, then the hooker, then the wingers, then the full back . . . what am I talking about? She’s probably had ’em all by now, one after the other. Yeah, she’ll be starting on the opposing team next . . .’

  I didn’t hear what he had to say in reply. I slammed down the phone. It was an evil, spiteful thing to do but I didn’t care – just like she didn’t care about me. My eyes locked on the scrap of paper where I’d written Aggi’s number. I picked it up and moved to the kitchen, pulling her photo down off the wall as I passed. Turning on a cooker ring I simultaneously set fire to the photo and her phone number. As the flames licked their way up to my fingers I let the ash fall in the sink, watching the fragment embers until they burned out. I half expected the fire alarm to come on but it didn’t. I turned on the tap. Soggy jet black ash blocked up the plughole.

  To celebrate my freedom, I lit another Marlboro Light, opened the window and sat on the ledge even though it was drizzling outside. I wanted to feel like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders but I felt exactly the opposite. I’d always secretly credited myself with a little bit of intelligence. I thought I was smarter than the average bear. So it came as a bit of a shock to discover that I was as much of a mug as anyone else.

  Ash fell onto my leg. I made a move to flick it off but didn’t bother because it didn’t hurt.

  After a while it got too cold on the ledge, my jeans were soaked through to my underwear and I could barely see out of my glasses. Back inside and lying in bed under the duvet, I wondered what Aggi was thinking about this very second. She must have thought I was mad calling her out of the blue after three years. She was half right, I suppose, I did call because of my birthday. Maybe it was the symmetry of it all. A reunion three years after she dumped me would’ve fitted in well with my romantic view of her. What a gal, eh? Comes back to me on the anniversary that she chucked me away – now that’s what I call stylish. I wanted to blame someone but the only person here was me. I sat down and did some calculations. Three years I’d spent wishing she’d come back to me – roughly 11.5 per cent of my life. I searched the room for a suitable metaphor and spied a half drunk can of Coke. It took a while but I calculated that 11.5 per cent of a 330ml can of Coke was – roughly speaking – three mouthfuls! Sodding sod! I’ve wasted three mouthfuls of the only can of Coke I’m ever going to get!

  In the bathroom, the light on and the extractor fan in full swing, I gave myself a pep talk. Half talking to my Audrey Hepburn poster and half talking to the mirror above the toilet, I told myself that this was it. I wasn’t going to take life lying down any more. Nothing was going to stop me from doing all the things I talked about doing but always found an excuse for never bringing to fruition. For the last three years I’d been living in a state of limbo. I’d been going to the same places, hanging out with the same people, listening to the same music – doing the same everything as a living monument to Aggi. I’d become chief curator in the National Museum of Ex-Girlfriends. I was stuck in the past unable to get on with the future because everything I ever wanted was in the past. No. Enough is definitely e-sodding-nough.

  Back in the main room, I lit another cigarette, and stood on the bed to get as close as I could to the smoke alarm. Taking a deep drag, I blew right into the sensor and under the cover of the siren I yelled: ‘Things are going to change!’

  5.30 P.M.

  My hands trembled as I picked up the phone. I didn’t know why, really – there was nothing to be nervous about at all. I’d already envisioned what would happen: I’d say hello, she’d say hello, we’d talk about life, the universe and everything; I’d make some facetious comment that would make her laugh; we’d have a good time; I’d forget all about Aggi. I’d feel human again.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Er, hello, is that Kate?’ I asked an unfamiliar voice.

  ‘No, it’s her flatmate. Who’s this?’

  ‘Oh, it’s Will,’ I said, taken aback. It hadn’t occurred to me that Kate’s flatmate ever answered the phone. ‘Is she there?’

  ‘Oh, you’re the guy she’s been talking to all weekend,’ said Paula, lacing her voice with mock surprise. ‘She’s off her tree, is that one. She’s been talking
about you non-stop. I’m surprised she didn’t pick up the phone herself, she’s been hovering by it all afternoon. You said you’d phone her back straight away, you lying sod. Tell me, why are men so crap?’

  If Kate’s flatmate was trying to embarrass me she was doing a particularly good job of it. The thought of someone this shallow being conversant with the intimacies of mine and Kate’s relationship annoyed me greatly; she was sullying the beautiful thing we’d created. I grew impatient. ‘I don’t know why men are so crap. I only know why I’m crap. Could you put her on, please?’

  ‘You’re keen,’ said Paula, clearly pleased to discover she was capable of winding me up. ‘That’s a good quality in a man. Have you got any friends?’ Not a single decent witty comeback or insult came to my lips, my wittiest barbed comment: ‘Oh, just sod off, will you?’ seemed rusty and dull in comparison.

  ‘Paula!’ yelled Kate. ‘Get off the extension, will you?’ Paula giggled maniacally. ‘Stop teasing him.’

  I let out a sigh of relief. ‘Hi, Kate?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s me,’ she replied. ‘Sorry to have put you through all of that. Paula’s in a bit of a mad mood today. Must be something to do with the moon.’

  Kate’s voice sounded magical, as if it had the power to do whatever she commanded, and right at this moment she had told it to provide me with comfort. I felt like I’d been rescued from the clutches of an evil dragon by a knightess in shining armour. If it had been possible for her to have lifted me up in her arms and carried me to safety, I honesty believe I couldn’t have thought of anything I wanted more at this very moment. I took a deep breath.

  ‘Kate, will you marry me?’

  ‘You what?’

  I cleared my throat needlessly, hoping that a simple cough would somehow steel my reserve.

  ‘I said, will you marry me? I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I’ve worked out two things: one is that I love you and the other is that I have to act on this new feeling as soon as possible.’

  She laughed nervously. ‘Are you joking? Because if you are, Will, it’s not funny.’