by Jenny Colgan
‘I don’t know. Boys are weird.’
‘Yes, they are. All of them. And they think we’re weird. But some of them are nice-weird and some of them are not. Think of Alex as an Amanda of the boy world. He made you feel exactly the same way as that snotty cow did when she took up with all those nobs and dropped you like a stone.’
‘And I still see her.’
Fran sighed. ‘And she makes you miserable. Which means you probably won’t listen to a word I say.’
‘Probably not.’
‘OK, well, fuck that for sisterly advice then. Any mini rolls left?’
We regarded the debris of tinfoil strewn across the floor.
‘That boy frightens me,’ murmured Fran.
I lay back on the sofa, groaning. ‘Oh God. First Fraser, then Nicholas, and now this. I hope karma isn’t true.’ A thought struck me: ‘You don’t think Amanda’s marrying Fraser just to fuck me off, do you?’
‘Probably,’ said Fran, stretching lazily and putting the TV on. ‘Don’t worry. If Alex is coming back, maybe she’ll marry him instead.’
Neither prospect filled me with glee.
Two
I trudged back into work on Monday feeling low. I always felt low at work anyway, so fortunately nobody noticed. Which they could only have done if I’d actually talked to anyone, and I never did. So, just a typical week, really.
I had a dingy grey office with a dead plant and big piles of crap all over it where I was supposed to check copy for a stationery company in Holborn. It was a shitty job going absolutely nowhere, but it demanded minimum brain power and paid more than McDonald’s, so I sat it out. In front of the office the secretarial staff tended to hover, sniffing suspiciously. Given that all I did in my job was read, whereas they typed and answered the phone too, they were very cagey about my presence – I swear I could hear them sharpening their extra-long nails whenever I walked in. Mostly, they ignored me. But even they couldn’t ignore me for three whole days, standing peering out over Holborn Viaduct through my tiny filthy window which didn’t open, holding a postcard and looking painfully wistful.
‘What’s the matter, love?’
Shirley was queen secretary, in her late thirties, with two-tone hair and attitude. Since Fran had given up on me in disgust, and Amanda would have said, ‘Oh, petal, are you going to take him back? … Well, you know best, dear, but he is a Charterhouse boy and they really do have a reputation for it …’ I was desperate for someone to confide in.
‘I, erm, well, it’s my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Ehm, well, he left a year ago without telling me and went to America, and now he’s coming back and I don’t know what to do.’
‘Got any kids?’
‘Gosh, no.’ I was surprised, and felt horribly middle class and at the same time cross that she thought I looked old enough to have kids.
‘’As he got any money?’
‘I … well, not much really.’
‘Tell ’im to fuck off then. Simple, innit? What’s the point of having ’im ’anging around, treating you like that?’
That made perfect sense.
‘Is that really what you’d do?’ I asked.
‘Every time my Stan pisses off, that’s exactly what I do. He knows he loves me, see. So he always comes crawling back. And I make him pay, believe me.’
‘Oh.’ I was confused. ‘So I shouldn’t tell Alex to fuck off, just make him pay?’
‘Up to you, love.’
‘Right. Right. Thanks.’
Oh God, I didn’t know when I was going to get round to picking up my dry-cleaning, never mind considering making a sensible decision about the bastard who tore my heart from its aorta, stomped up and down on it, and gleefully reduced me to the sort of person who considered Nicholas a fantastic night on the town.
Preparing myself a cup of my delicious coffee made with three different sorts of powder scraped off the bottom of other people’s catering tins, I switched on my voice mail, a wonderful invention which had saved me the trouble of ever having to pick up the phone and speak to anyone at work, thereby avoiding being asked to do any. I had five new messages. Gosh, that made me sound popular. I perked up a bit.
It occurred to me, as it had done every half-hour since Saturday, that Alex might have phoned. After all, I’d hardly been hurling myself up the career ladder since he left; he knew where to find me. I got excited all over again, and drank my coffee without tasting it (a vast improvement).
‘Hello, Melanie darling, wonderful to see you two the other night – looked like you were on for a bit of a party after I left!’
Great. It was Amanda ‘La la la, I’m marrying the man I love and we’re having fifteen adorable NCT children and living in a whole house done in National Trust colours for ever and ever’ Phillips.
I beeped over the rest of it. It was definitely too early in the day to deal with that.
‘Mel.’ Phew. It was Fran. She would tell me what to do.
‘I’ve thought this over very thoroughly. If you take him back you will have to die. And ring me – we have to decide whether we’re going to bitchtastic Phillips’s engagement party … and then decide to go anyway, like we always do, and have a shitty time, like we always do.’
That must have been what Amanda’s message was about. Could I handle her and all her posh friends – whom I would hate and therefore get drunk so as not to mind talking to them, and then get too drunk and possibly end up getting off with aforesaid posh friends, thus maintaining the cycle of shame? Still, a party was a party, no matter how humiliating.
BEEP
‘Melanie, yes, good morning … um … you wouldn’t still have that brochure proof I gave you six weeks ago? The marketing chappies swear they don’t have it, but it couldn’t possibly still be with you, could it? I’ll speak to you later then. Goodbye.’
Bugger it. My boss, Barney, was terribly polite, ethical, and saw the best in everyone. Therefore everyone considered him washed up and constantly took the piss. I looked in despair at my desk. Anything six weeks old had probably mulched by now.
BEEP
‘Melanie, this is Flavi in marketing. We’ve had your boss on to us, and I really don’t think …’
BEEP. I think, Flavi, that I’ve got rather more important things on right now, don’t you? Like major emotional crises and stuff?
One message left. Did I feel lucky?
BEEP
‘Mel! Great, hey, well, what a wild weekend, huh?’
The speed with which my stomach hit the floor on hearing Nicholas’s nasal whine made me realize how much I really, really wanted to hear from Alex. Only to tell him a thing or two, of course. Or listen to him grovel. Where the fuck had Nicholas got this number anyway? I thought of Linda. She paid me back for not doing the washing-up in a myriad of different little ways.
‘Anyway, yeah, I’m pretty busy with all my friends, right. We’re off on some accountants’ night out. God, they’re nutters! But, hey, I might have some time on Tuesday night …’
Nicholas, it’s Monday now, you plank. Not that I had anything planned, but God, of course I’m not going to say yes at that kind of notice!
‘… or Wednesday, maybe … We could go out somewhere nice. Hey, give me a ring, it’s 555 8923 – just ask for Crazy Nick, they all know me here! Hyaw! Hyaw! Ciao!’
Ciao? Suddenly I felt as depressed as I’ve ever felt in my entire life – or at least, in a month or so. This was it then. I was going to get niggled at in a shitty job I didn’t care about, go to my so-called friends’ fabulous engagement parties, live with someone who thought hoovering was a positive life choice, drink sludge instead of espresso, and date men who said ‘ciao’ until I got too old and ugly to date anyone at all.
I slumped down on my desk – the enormous mounds of paper gave it a cushioning effect – and reached out to switch off the speaker mode.
‘A new message has been added to your voice mail,’ said the mechanical voice.
Immediately, I knew.
I pressed ‘2’. An annoying voice in my head was singing, ‘He’s coming home, he’s coming, Alex is coming home, he’s coming home …’
BEEP
‘Mel, hey, it’s me … like, how’re you doing?’ People in the background. I could feel that big lazy grin of his spreading over his face and therefore mine. ‘It’s four o’clock in the morning, we’re just hanging out … where the fuck are we?’ ‘The Village’ – American woman’s voice. Dirty. ‘Yeah, it’s absolutely brilliant and I am cummminngg’, he started to sing, ‘hooommmee tooooo yewwwww.’ There was laughter in the background, a couple of ‘whoops’, then a pause, then: ‘Hey, babe – I’ll be at Heathrow. Today.’ And then he hung up.
Oh. Oh! Chuffing hell. Every cell in my body renegotiated itself, and I shivered all over. Oh God. How was I going to cope? I would have to clean my bedroom for a start. And buy new pants. And start cooking again, boohoo. Could I reduce the size of my arse by – when? When was his today? Was it today or was it tomorrow? Piss! I started panicking. Why couldn’t he tell me when his stupid flight gets in? He obviously hadn’t been promoted from the space cadet corps.
Of course I would have to go. It never occurred to me otherwise. The adrenaline was coursing through my body: I felt as if I’d won; like I’d beaten America, his wanderlust and, well, any other lusts he might have experienced in passing. He was coming home. I was practically jumping up and down on the spot and decided to walk out immediately. Who would notice? Hey, it wasn’t like I walked out over emotional crises a lot! Well … maybe occasionally.
Alex was coming back! Alex was coming back! He loved me! He loved me! I looked pitifully at the beautiful handwritten note my boss had left me vis-à-vis the delicate diplomatic situation between us and the marketing department, and decided to leg it. I took a deep breath, strode out in front of the secretaries, and announced, rather too loudly, ‘Oh God, meetings all day. Ha! You know what it’s like!!!’ – then bolted, leaving them behind, hissing slightly. Free!
All the way to Heathrow I bounced up and down in the carriage like a toddler. Terminal Four was mobbed and I wandered off to buy myself a load of make-up and some magazines – who knew, he may be some time. I was just considering buying some shampoo and washing my hair when it hit me.
He’d phoned at nine o’clock. From New York. At 4 a.m. his time. And now it was twenty past eleven. Half past six in the morning? He probably hadn’t even gone to bed, never mind got up, packed, swallowed his hangover, got to the airport, checked in for two hours, got on the plane, watched a couple of films, got drunk again and got here. Yes, it appeared I might well have time to wash my hair.
I was back in the Land of Alex; the place that made me go completely out of my fucking head.
ARRRGGGH. I was the skeggiest creature in the universe. No one in the world could ever have been such a twat before. I counted it up on my fingers. The earliest he could possibly be here would be 6 p.m. I twisted about in an agony of indecision. A part of me wanted to wait, right here. A part of me wanted to get on a plane and jump out and meet him halfway. NONE of me wanted to go back to the office with my tail between my legs. What I really wanted was to turn back time and have none of this ever happen. Simultaneously clenching my buttocks and hopping up and down, I wondered what the hell to do.
Of course, when in doubt, one should always phone one’s closest confidante for their deep love and support.
‘I would say the best thing to do now is break into airport security where they keep all the confiscated firearms, confiscate one and hit him with a sniper bullet before he can make it to baggage control.’
‘Frraaannn! I’ve got to wait all day and I don’t know what to do!’
‘Grow up? Sort your life out? Start making some conscious decisions about yourself?’
‘I thought I’d read some women’s magazines,’ I mumbled.
‘Oh, now there’s a good idea for someone as sad as you. They’re full of articles on “How to keep that pathetic cheating low-down pigdog in your life happy”.’
I snuffled. As pathetic as I was, it made sense to play up to it.
‘Don’t try that snuffle bollocks on me. I refuse to be sympathetic because you’re welcoming back into your life a man who is only going to cause you pain – and you are entirely to blame.’
I said ‘bye’ and wandered back into the terminal feeling utterly lonely and unloved. That was a feeling I found was helped by being surrounded by young couples fleeing into each other’s arms and long-lost family members kissing, hugging and crying all around me.
But when he got off that plane …
I decided to take in the entire airport experience, make it a positive thing. I went and had my hair done – not cut, just done, which made me feel like a TV weathergirl. I quite liked pretending to be the kind of person who had their hair done, however it may have clashed with the ladder in the inside leg of my tights (you could hardly see it). There isn’t that much you can do with a heavy scrunch of unshiny brown curly stuff, but they tried their best and made lots of interested-sounding noises when I mentioned I was here to pick up my boyfriend from the airport as he’d been in America.
I kept getting flashbacks. That time he walked into my office at eleven o’clock in the morning, straight past the vulture brigade, into the office, pulled down the blind, and gave me one right there. The time we got absolutely rollocksed and tried to break into St Paul’s Cathedral. That time the central heating broke down and we both refused to get up and get any food and stayed in bed for fifteen hours and we both peed out of the window … That time he ‘went to comfort an old friend’ for three days and I never found out who, or where … That time I met his mum and dad – oh no, I never did.
I blocked out the bad thoughts from my head, and decided that this time there were definitely going to be ground rules. If he wanted to come back, it was going to be on my terms. This time, Fran would be proud of me.
OK: we’d have lots of togetherness. No more him vanishing with the lads … But then, what if I was just being all clingy and wouldn’t leave him alone and he got really, really bored and I did too and we ended up just staying in and saying things like, ‘Err, do you want to go to the cinema then?’ ‘Errr … don’t mind …’ ‘What do you want to go and see?’ ‘Don’t mind …’ until we both killed ourselves! Maybe nitch that one then.
OK, we’d have lots of open public affection. Not snogging, necessarily, but a bit of hand-holding wouldn’t go amiss, so he didn’t look like my cousin from the attractive end of the family if I ever met anyone I knew.
And he could at least try and get on with my friends. Although they all hated him.
I phoned Fran again.
‘Leave me alone. You are no longer my friend. You fraternize with the untouchable ones.’
‘Fraaan.’ My genuine panic was beginning to show through.
‘OK. Here’s one test. He’s been away for ten months, right?’
‘Yep. I’ve had my hair done.’
‘Oh, that’s pretty subtle … Anyway, he’s been away for ten months. After vanishing completely and never contacting you again …’
‘Apart from the postcard.’
‘The postcard you got two days ago when he remembered he’d left Charlie in the shit and needed to find somewhere else to stay.’
‘Mmm.’
‘OK. Those are the facts. You are dumb enough to be there waiting for him. As a hypothetical test, one might think it would be the least little considerate thing he could do to buy you a present, right?’
‘Oh, Alex doesn’t really believe in giving presents. He thinks it’s bourgeois.’
Now what was she sighing for?
‘God, Mel, what are you doing? Tell me you’re not putting him up.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Fantastic. Have you told Linda about the new addition to your jolly little Kennington family?’
‘Oh, she’ll be fine. She won’t say anything.’
‘That means the same
thing, does it?’
I was getting too upset to talk. I mean, what did my best friend since age four know about my life anyway?
‘Mel, you know I wouldn’t say anything if I wasn’t worried about you and if I didn’t care about you, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I mumbled ungratefully.
‘Give me a ring when he gets in then. When’s that going to be?’
‘Ehmm, anywhere in the next fifteen hours.’
‘OK. Cool. Bye.’
It was true. Alex did a horrid, horrid thing to me. It’s just, oh, Alex’s problems – where to start? Public school, weird distant parents who divorced early, that whole deal. I was psychologically-tastic when it came to Alex. When I’d met him he’d just emerged from his last finding-his-own-anus phase in Goa. Well, I wasn’t going to be his doormat any more.
Oh good, only six hours to go.
Wanting to avoid another ear-bashing, but desperate for someone to talk to, I phoned Amanda. Some bloke picked up the phone.
‘Hello, is Amanda there?’
‘No, she’s not. Can I take a message?’
I recognized that accent!
‘Frase! Hi, it’s Melanie!’
There was a pause.
‘Melanie …’
‘Melanie Pepper. You remember! Mel!’
Jesus.
‘Oh, hi, hi there. Yes. What are you up to these days?’
Oh, I’m just sitting in Heathrow Airport, where I’ve turned up fifteen hours early by mistake, having my hair set and waiting for my selfish ex-boyfriend who left me in shit nearly a year ago, and whom I still haven’t got over, to – possibly – return from America, having walked out of my job this morning with no explanation.
‘Oh, you know … usual stuff.’
‘Right, great.’
God! Could we be any more scintillating?
‘So, congratulations!’ I said heartily. ‘You’re marrying my old buddy!’
I tried to imagine him bending over to kiss Amanda, but I couldn’t make it fit. His curly hair would fall in her eyes. She’d hate that.
He laughed nervously. ‘So it seems.’