Playground Cool

by Sinclair, Jamie

  For a moment, Ben thought she might only be sucking up to him because he was her boss, but he dismissed the suspicion. He stood up and removed his jacket from the back of his chair. He felt relieved: he could finally leave the office, yet still ward off the loneliness for a while.

  They left the building and walked around the corner to the Ape and Apple. It was a small, traditional pub that stood out against the numerous trendy bars that were opening all the time. It had wooden floors and lots of small wooden tables surrounded by little round stools, with foil ashtrays in the centre of each table. Old pictures of unknown bands hung from the walls and there was a juke box in the corner playing Good Thing by the Fine Young Cannibals.

  ‘What are you having?’ Em asked. Ben could have sworn there was excitement in her voice.

  ‘I’ll get them,’ he said. ‘You go and get a table.’

  ‘Right, then. Thanks. I’ll have a vodka and Red Bull, please. I’m usually so tired after a day trying to remember everything at the office that I really need a couple to pick me up.’

  ‘Red Bull?’ Ben raised his eyebrows in surpise. Perhaps he’d been a bit hasty in his assessment of Em.

  ‘Yeah. Less of a hangover. I’m meeting some mates later on.’

  While he ordered the drinks, Em looked for a table, spotting one on the other side of the bar next to a log fire. Ben watched her as she walked across the pub and again asked himself what he thought he was playing at. He only ever socialised with people from work on birthdays and at the Christmas party. Now here he was, on what had been a bloody awful day so far, out for a drink with the new girl whom he didn’t even particularly like. She does have something though, he thought.

  It wasn’t like Ben to be so passive. His colleagues often asked him if he fancied joining them for drinks, but he usually said no. But usually, Rhia was waiting for him at home.

  He really ought to be trying to talk to Rhia. He’d no idea where she was, who she was with, or if he’d even hear from her again. For all he knew she could be fatally ill, or maybe she’d won the lottery and didn’t want to share. Maybe, she was shacked up with someone else.

  ‘Do you come in here a lot after work, then?’ Ben asked. As he sat down he could smell her perfume, flowery with a hint of vanilla, as it mingled with the smoky smell of the bar.

  ‘Once or twice with a few people from the office. I’m still making friends so I only come when someone I know is going to be here so I have someone to talk to.’

  After a couple of minutes of awkward silences and people-watching, Ben began to feel that the outing had been a bad idea.

  ‘I really ought to be getting back,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to er…I’m ah…’

  ‘Why did you have such a bad day today?’ Em asked suddenly, cutting through the small talk.

  ‘Well,’ he began, unsure of what to tell this girl whom he barely knew, especially when he thought of his private life being gossiped about in the office.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. It’s just that you seemed really distant today and you’re normally all over everything that’s happening. I just wondered if there was a problem with my work, or if I’d done something wrong?’

  Typical, thought Ben. All Em cared about was her sodding progress in her new job.

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with work actually,’ he replied coolly, feeling stupid for imagining she genuinely liked him. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘Is Rhia alright then?’

  ‘Yeah, fine. As far as I know.’ How the hell did she know about Rhia?

  Understanding his frown, Em volunteered, ‘I assume the picture on your desk isn’t your sister and you’ve doodled ‘Rhia’ all over the post-it notes on your desk.’

  ‘Right. Yeah.’ He was embarrassed by his childish behaviour. ‘Rhia’s my girlfriend. Ex- girlfriend, I suppose, as of this morning.’ Why am I telling her this, Ben wondered.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. She phoned me this morning to tell me she’d left me. I was still in bed. I thought she was just in another room getting ready for work…’

  ‘Have you called her?’

  ‘I tried her mobile but it’s been switched off all day. She phoned from her sister’s but I doubt I’d be allowed to speak to her if I tried there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Em’s sister, Fran, hates my guts. To be fair, I’m not mad keen on her either. You know how some people just aggravate you every time they speak? Well, that’s how Fran is. Total pain in the arse.’ Ben explained.

  ‘And you’ve no idea why she left? You didn’t say anything or do anything…’

  ‘We had a bit of an argument last night, but it was nothing. At least so I thought.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  Ben decided he’d said far too much already and would regret it when he got into work tomorrow and found that he was the day’s topic for discussion. He was surprised by Em too; she certainly grew in confidence outside the office. He’d had her down as being the shy and retiring type, who kept herself to herself. Yet here she was quizzing him about his relationship with Rhia. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being a bit too nosy.

  ‘It’s not your problem, really. I’ll be fine. I’ll ring her again when I get home. Who knows, by tomorrow this might all be sorted out.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to pry,’ she said quickly, ‘I won’t say a word at work or anything.’

  Ben had already stood up. He grinned at his unexpected confidante. ‘Thanks, Em. For listening I mean. I’m sorry I was such a shit to you at work today. Every day, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s alright. You’re the boss; it’s your job to be shitty.’ She was smiling again. He decided it was an attractive smile, a full smile, with the eyes as well as the mouth, the kind that lit up a face.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks again.’ Ben turned and walked quickly out of the bar without looking back. He was convinced he’d made a huge mistake in telling Em so much about Rhia and her leaving. It would be all over the office tomorrow, yet he had found himself talking to Em like an old friend. He walked to his car and realised on the way home that he felt a little better after discussing his problems with somebody, even if it was likely to cause him no end of embarrassment.

  At home, he went straight to the answering machine, but the messages he had hoped for weren’t there. After pouring himself a very generous measure of whiskey, he went into the bedroom to see if Rhia had indeed been back for the rest of her things. The wardrobe was empty of her clothes except for a jumper he’d bought her for Christmas, which was tossed in a crumpled heap in the corner of the wardrobe. Ben realised he’d never seen Rhia wear the jumper. On Christmas day, she’d held it up to herself and proclaimed it to be a perfect fit before casually placing it to one side.

  Most of her make-up had disappeared from the bathroom with only a few old lip-glosses and a bottle of Jean Paul Gautier perfume remaining. Also a present from him.

  Ben was suddenly, wearily, angry. Tiredness overwhelmed him; he felt ready to give up. For the first time in his adult life he was close to tears, at a complete loss. He felt utterly drained: physically from the long day and mentally from turning his mind over and over to try and see some kind of reason behind Rhia’s sudden abandonment of him and their relationship.

  He tossed and turned for hours, too restless to sleep. Finally, he gave up and switched on the television, helping himself to more whiskey. It was strange how all the same material things were still present; television, DVD player, CD player and so on, yet he could find nothing to occupy his mind. Somehow these things filled a gap and were entertaining when Rhia was here but now the noise only seemed to highlight the fact that he was alone.

  Eventually he gave up and just sat on the sofa in silence, glass in hand. He looked at the clock over the fireplace: quarter to three. He’d been sitting there for hours, not really thinking about anything, his mind too full of thoughts and too tired to place them in
any kind of manageable order. Deciding to try to sleep again - if nothing else it might provide some escape from this enforced, uncomfortable solitude - Ben went upstairs to bed. After about twenty minutes of turning over and over, the effects of the long day and the half bottle of whiskey he’d drunk since coming home, combined to send him to sleep. As he drifted off, he thought about the recent fights with Rhia about having children. Maybe that’s why she left. Perhaps she couldn’t face being a mother.

  Chapter Three

  Katie and Dave had, until he’d dumped her the previous night, been living together for just over six months. They’d met in a bar while she’d been on a night out with some friends from work. They’d been getting quite noisy, laughter and shouting fuelled by alcohol as the pressure of the day slipped away with each mouthful of spirits and each funny story. A man came over and asked if they would mind keeping it down a little, there were other people to consider.

  Ordinarily Katie and her friends would have told the nosy sod to get lost but they took notice in this instance since to their tired, drunken eyes Dave looked rather gorgeous. He was at least six feet tall with very short, light brown hair and obviously did some form of exercise as he was visibly toned through his expensive looking white shirt. His eyes were the colour of faded denim, their sparkle intensified by his tanned skin. Then there were his shoes, divine black loafers that only someone confident in their appearance could carry off with any success. Katie, like many women, judged a man on his shoes and these were great shoes. It also turned out that Dave was the manager of the bar and that they would have to leave if they didn’t start being less raucous.

  She’d started going to Dave’s bar regularly after that, sometimes with friends, very occasionally on her own on the pretence of meeting someone else later. Eventually Dave had noticed, they’d become friendly and then he invited her to stay behind for a drink one night. After a couple of after hour’s drinks they went on their first proper date and things snowballed from there.

  Six months later, Dave had suggested they move in together as it would be nice to have someone to come home to and he felt that he wanted to make some kind of commitment. She’d been surprised, but the idea really appealed to her. The flat came with his job and the idea of living rent free had persuaded Katie to take the plunge and move in. She put her flat out to rent, as she didn’t want to burn all her bridges until she was absolutely sure. This had proved to be very sensible since she was now single.

  Katie opened her eyes: her first mistake of the day. Her head throbbed as if it had been kicked repeatedly; the pain becoming much sharper and more focused as the daylight hit her eyes.

  This was the morning after the night that Katie and The Tosser, as Dave had now been re-christened, were supposed to be meeting Jen and this month’s boyfriend for a meal in town. Instead Jen had arrived with a carrier bag full of wine, a sympathetic ear and a vocabulary tailored to the assassination of the male species. Together they’d set about making Katie feel more positive about her current state of freedom and drew up a list of reasons why she would be better off without The Tosser.

  After a third bottle of wine Jen decided it was time for food and produced the number of a Chinese take-away. The pair ordered a portion of almost everything from the various sections of the menu and drank another bottle of wine while they waited for the delivery. Thirty minutes later, they were surrounded by foil trays filled with bamboo shoots, beef chop suey, sweet and sour pork, king fried prawns, two kinds of rice, a side portion of mushrooms and a large bag of chips.

  Finally, having ploughed through enough food to last both of them a week under normal circumstances Katie had decided to put a DVD on. She settled on ‘The Goonies’ because both she and Jen agreed that they needed to see something ridiculous and this was the most childish film Katie owned thanks to someone buying it for her as a present years earlier. She skipped past the trailers and, moments later, they were enjoying the full home cinema experience on Dave’s 55 inch high definition LCD screen. In their drunken state, they also managed to amuse themselves by pretending that the ugly creature kept locked up in the film was, in fact, Dave.

  The last thing Katie remembered was wiping a soggy chip through the cold remains of the sweet and sour sauce and seeing Jen, unconscious in a chair, her head tipped to one side and mouth wide open.

  Katie moved her head to one side so that she could look towards the source of the noise without having to move her body. The Sky Planner was displayed on screen, background music on a loop. The noise was irritating but not nearly enough to prompt her to get up and switch it off. Then she heard the toilet flush and the sound of someone coughing.

  ‘You look well,’ said Jen quietly, shuffling from the bathroom.

  ‘I feel fat and horrid. What are you still doing here?’ said Katie, surprised to see her drinking partner.

  ‘We must have passed out in front of that awful film and by the time I woke up we were both late for work so I left you.’

  ‘Oh shit.’ Katie moaned, ‘I’ve got to phone and say I won’t be in.’

  ‘No need. I phoned Fontaines for you after I’d rung in sick myself. I had to get up to be sick anyway so I thought I’d at least sound ill on the phone.’

  ‘Thanks. What the hell did we eat? It smells revolting in here.’

  Jen slumped in a chair as Katie hauled herself up to rest her head against the arm of the sofa she was lying on. The sight of half-eaten, congealed Chinese food made her close her eyes again and let out another moan.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Almost half past ten.’ Jen sighed with the effort of lifting her wrist to look at her watch.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, each taking the occasional deep breath as if they might be sick at any moment. Katie opened her eyes and squinted over at Jen who was staring into space.

  ‘Do you fancy a coffee?’

  ‘Water would be better.’

  Katie rolled off of the sofa and got to her knees. Taking a deep breath to steady herself she gradually raised herself on to her feet, using the table for support. Then, her head hanging between her shoulders, she shuffled into the kitchen to get the drinks.

  While the kettle was boiling she took off the clothes she’d worn to work the previous day and had now slept in, and put them in the washing basket. She then pulled on a pyjama top from the tumble drier and made herself a cup of very strong coffee.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Jen, gulping down her water.

  ‘What’s that in your hair?’ asked Katie as she flopped back on to the sofa.

  Jen raised her hand and ran her fingers through her hair until she found the matter in question.

  ‘Sick,’ she replied simply, ‘It must have stuck there when I was bent over the toilet.’

  They both managed a fragile laugh at the image and then fell silent as they finished their drinks.

  ‘We’re gonna have to make a move, mate,’ Jen prompted finally, ‘We can’t stay here all day festering.’

  ‘Oh, I know. I just need another few minutes to build up my energy.’

  At last, after several aborted attempts, the two women raised themselves into standing positions and, by midday, had showered and cleaned up the mess of the previous evening.

  ‘Shall we go and have some lunch since we both have the day free?’ Jen suggested, tipping the remaining foil containers into a bin bag.

  ‘Love to, but I could only manage a light snack or I’ll throw up. Nothing Chinese either. We could go to that new Italian place in the old Stock Exchange that we were gonna go to last night. They do a lunch menu as well apparently.’

  ‘Good enough. As long as they sell water by the bottle we should be fine.’

  As they picked up their coats and headed for the door, Katie stopped and turned to face Jen.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Jen smiled and pushed her gently toward the door.

  ‘No problem. We deserve a day off work anyway. How do you feel?’

&n
bsp; ‘Rough as fuck, but I don’t think I’m about to burst into tears or anything.’

  ‘Well, that’s a start then.’

  They decided to hail a cab into town as neither of them felt up to driving or waiting for a bus. Twenty minutes later, they were standing outside Stock, looking at the lunch menu posted in the window. Inside, they were shown to a table that looked out on to the street and a waiter took their drinks order. While they waited, they amused themselves by reading the Italian proverbs pasted on to the terracotta walls, along with various recipes and a couple of old-looking acoustic guitars.

  They’d just been given their starters, both choosing the tomato and herb foccacia, when Katie’s mobile phone began to ring. She opened her bag and looked at the screen to see who the caller was.

  ‘Oh shit!’ she gasped.

  ‘Do you want me to talk to him?’ Jen offered, reaching across the table to take the phone.

  She shook her head in reply, switched the phone off and replaced it in her bag.

  ‘Fuck him. He can leave a message and I might ring him back but he’s not interrupting my lunch with his crap.’

  After they’d picked over their meals, both choosing a warm chicken salad, Katie took out her mobile phone again and switched it on. The message service immediately rang back and she placed the phone over the middle of the table so they could both hear the message.

  ‘Er. Hi. It’s er, it’s Dave.’

  ‘Well he remembers his name. What a clever boy,’ Jen said dryly.

  ‘I forgot a few things the other day and I was going to pop round tonight and get them. If you’re in then we could talk. If you like. Anyway, I’ll be there at about seven. So then. I might see you later. Bye.’

  The two friends looked at each other across the table, each waiting for the other to say what the other was thinking.

  ‘He wants sex,’ said Jen, ending the silence.

  ‘Give over, what makes you say that?’

  ‘Because he told you what time he’d be coming so you can tart yourself up and he’s a bloke. I bet you any money you like he tries it on.’