by Neal Doran
Chapter Twelve
‘Oh. Hello, Dan, what are you doing here?’
Hannah was at their front door in the schlumpiest clothes I think I’d ever seen her wear: a sweatshirt that could only have been bought as a cruel ironic gift and jogging bottoms so tatty that they would force you to sprint away if you saw anyone you knew if you were wearing them out on the street.
Her face looked a little blotchy and her eyes a little bloodshot too. I wondered if that was the reason for not getting exactly the warmest of welcomes.
‘Oh, y’know. Reporting for training,’ I said. ‘You all right?’
‘Giving the flat its annual clean, whether it needs it or not,’ she said, giving her nose a rub with the sleeve of her top.
‘Hoovering at seven-thirty to punish the hungover,’ shouted Rob from the top of the stairs as I followed Hannah up to their place.
‘Coffee?’
‘Please.’
Hannah went into the kitchen and from the living room I could hear doors being opened and shut noisily as the machine was taken out and the proper stuff was rooted out of the fridge. Something was definitely up. By this time on a Saturday the pair of them were usually on their second pot of industrial filter coffee, to set them up for the weekend. This cleaning jag was obviously a big one.
Although looking around, aside from the Dyson abandoned in the middle of the room, there wasn’t much evidence of sprucing up to be seen. Not that they lived in squalor or anything — and I’d hardly be one to talk — but the magazines and DVDs waiting to be returned to their designated shelf homes had been untouched. For me that was usually the first job to be tackled — how could you know what needed to be dusted without the outline of a West Wing box set that had sat on the coffee table for a month to guide you? It didn’t even look as if the clean had been derailed by a pause to catch up on old interviews with Gwyneth Paltrow in Red. The untidiness looked pristine.
I stood and looked out of the window at the street below — they hadn’t been cleaning the glass either… — and could hear quiet voices in the other room. That was when I realised something was definitely up. Rob never whispered. I didn’t know what was being said, but it didn’t sound good. All I could get was little bursts of hissing that sounded like somebody playing with the hob of a gas cooker.
‘Fshhht. Fshhhhhhhhht fshhht…’
‘Fsht!’
‘Fshht fsh fshttt!’
‘Fshhhhhhht! Fshhht Dan fshhhht fshtt fsssshhhhhhhhttt.’
At that point I couldn’t hear any more as they turned on the radio and the sound of the gas leak was drowned out by the sound of Will Young telling Graham Norton about his new album. Radio 2 aside, it sounded potentially explosive in there. I thought about doing a runner — making my excuses and leaving as they said in the tabloids. But just as I was heading out to the hall to bluster about it obviously not being a good time they emerged with coffee and biscuits. Both of them were smiling and if you looked at Rob you’d think nothing was wrong, that everything was right in the world. But Hannah was in no way as good at faking it.
We all sat down. Rob on the armchair on the far side of the room, Hannah on her corner of the sofa by the door, and me perched nervously on the computer chair by the desk. I’m no expert on body language, but everything about the way the two of them were sitting radiated hostility between them. Every part of them was directed away from each other. Knees, arms, feet, elbows all pointing at me.
An awkward triangle.
Breaking the silence, Rob chirped up, explaining what was going on to Hannah, but still looking at me.
‘So I spoke to Dan last night, thought he should come over for some prep before we sent him into combat again armed only with bar snacks.’
‘He spoke to you about this last night?’ said Hannah.
‘It was late,’ I mumbled guiltily, ‘after we’d already spoken.’
Of course, Rob and I hadn’t actually spoken. After I’d collapsed into a catatonic sleep I’d had a missed call, and a text telling me to come around for a dress rehearsal at midday Saturday. I’d been summonsed really, rather than communicated with. I now had a feeling I’d been coerced into covering something up, but didn’t say anything. With the atmosphere in the room I was too scared to speak at all, unless directly spoken to.
‘You two spoke yesterday?’ said Rob, bristling a little. ‘Getting very pally these days, eh. Almost think you don’t need my advice.’
‘I’m surprised you didn’t mention it when the two of you talked last night,’ said Hannah.
Would everyone just stop looking at me? I wanted to yell under the intensity of their gazes. Instead I gave them my biggest, most heartfelt, nervous smile. This was supposed to be an hour or two of ego massage and confidence boosting ahead of a big date, but I was ending up as collateral damage in a domestic. I think I preferred being interrogated by the cops.
‘You know us boys,’ I started babbling, ‘never talk about the big things. It’s all football, and beer, and…arm-wrestling. And I’ve just remembered I think I’ve left the bath running so I’d best be off before I—’
I’d barely risen to a standing position before Rob cut me off, and I was stranded, my flight instinct not enough to disentangle me from their fight.
‘You’re not getting away that easily, sport. I’m sure your insurance will cover the guy downstairs’ collapsed roof. Now, date practice. You be you, and I’ll be somebody hot.’
‘You’re going to be the girl?’ I asked.
‘Well, unless you want to do it,’ he said, looking at me.
‘I always thought Dan would make a very sympathetic woman,’ said Hannah.
Was that a conspiratorial smirk in my direction? The double meanings and barbs littering every exchange left me confused.
‘H’s going to judge, aren’t you, dollface?’ said Rob. ‘Putting her best abilities to good use.’
There was a slow blink from Hannah, and a big swallow. But then she lifted her shoulders up, tied her hair back and smiled, going toe-to-toe with Rob on fake good cheer.
‘Come on, Dan, you can do this!’ she urged. ‘If you can be convincing chatting up this ugly mug, you’ll be ready for anything. Here, give me a hand with this table.’
The two of us moved their dining table and a couple of chairs to the middle of the room. Rob found a plastic flower he’d ‘ironically’ nicked for Hannah years ago from a curry house and put it in the middle of the table.
‘So are we really going to do this?’ I asked.
‘Why not? You’re up for this, Hannah?’
Rob looked at his wife for the first time since I’d arrived, challenging her to say there was any reason we couldn’t.
‘Let’s give this poor soul the benefit of all our dating wisdom,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll need my glasses for this.’
While the cliché remained of the plain secretary who took off her glasses one day and shook out her hair prompting cries of, ‘But, Miss Perkins, you’re beautiful!’, it was kind of the opposite with Hannah. She was one of those women — usually movie stars trying to be taken seriously — whose looks were somehow enhanced by specs. The thick black frames against her fair skin framed her face, highlighting her features. With her hair corralled up into a messy ponytail, and in her scruffy wide-necked sweatshirt, I kind of noticed for the first time she had a neck. Not that I didn’t think she had one before, just it hadn’t been part of her that I thought about. Not that I was thinking about it now. But as she stretched across to get her coffee and a pad for taking notes on my performance she looked serious, studious, and kinda…
‘I’ll just sit down here,’ said Rob in a flutey high-pitched voice, disrupting my daydream, and bringing me back into this domestic no-man’s-land.
‘Just ‘cos you’re being the woman doesn’t mean you have to do the panto-dame voice,’ I said.
‘Oh, sorry. I thought I was being you this time,’ said Rob, grinning, ‘and I hope you wouldn’t flick the vees at your a
ctual date quite so readily.’
‘What’s your name?’ I asked. ‘Who am I going to be talking to — Roberta?’
‘If he’s going to the trouble of having a sex change we’re going to be a bit more ambitious than adding an “a” to his name,’ said Hannah, ‘Call him Juanita. Juanita Allure.’
‘Juanita Allure Cunnilingua,’ added Rob, ‘of the Buenos Aires Cunnilinguas.’
‘OK, Dan, so in you go,’ directed Hannah. ‘Head up high. Big smile. Ready for the kiss hello.’
I approached the table walking as uprightly as I could. I felt like a Thunderbirds puppet. Reaching the table, I stepped in for an air kiss so close I was grazed by Juanita’s stubble. Before I could suggest she should have shaved before a big date I was goosed to within an inch of my life. The frosted-glass lampshade rang like a bell as I jumped and my head became a clanger.
‘Tell her to keep her busy hands to herself until at least you’ve bought her dinner,’ said Hannah sternly as she doodled on her notepad.
I broke off from the role play for an important question.
‘Actually I’ve been meaning to ask about this. Should I be paying for everything?’
‘We wouldn’t need to be doing this practice if you were paying for everything,’ Rob butted in.
‘I mean dinner and drinks and all that. Isn’t it a bit sexist?’
‘Cheapskate,’ said Rob.
‘I know what you mean, Dan,’ said Hannah, ‘but I’m afraid it’s just good manners. You’ve invited her out, and as a grown up you can’t expect her to then pay for the extra garlic bread you didn’t have. It’s rarely considered a good thing when a date starts fiddling with the calculator on their phone.’
‘But what if she offers to split it? I don’t want to look like some kind of obnoxious chauvinist alpha male who insists on taking charge of everything around the little lady.’
Hannah looked up at me with her hands clasped under her chin and gave me the first genuine happy smile I’d seen since I arrived.
‘I don’t think you need to worry about coming across like that, sweetheart. But if she does offer, suggest maybe she gets it next time.’
‘You end up paying for it all in the end anyway,’ muttered Rob before undoing all the buttons on his polo shirt and slinging his hips to one side. Juanita was back, with her sultry baritone Latina accent, and aerated aitches added to every word, whether they needed them or not.
‘H’excuse me, h’loverboy, h’all jour h’tattention h’should be h’on h’me.’
‘Don’t forget the opening compliments,’ coached Hannah from the couch.
‘That’s a lovely accent you have.’
‘OK, not bad, it’ll do,’ Hannah said. ‘Keep going.’
‘Where are you from?’ I asked.
‘My familia hees h’from da slums h’of… Oh, fuck it, I’ll hyperventilate if I keep this up,’ wheezed Rob, dropping the accent. ‘Balham. Born and bred.’
‘Tell her that’s fascinating,’ said Hannah. ‘Use it to find a bit of common ground. You know Balham.’
‘That’s intriguing,’ I said, to a barely suppressed snigger from Juanita. ‘Balham’s, er, one of my favourite stops on the Northern Line.’
‘Really? Which way do you prefer it? Northbound or southbound?’
‘Is that one of those smutty references I don’t always understand?’ I asked. ‘And could you do the accent again? Just without it it’s like I’m talking to you. And I don’t think I’m homophobic but it is making me queasy…’
‘Welcome to the world of dating,’ muttered Hannah.
‘Hokayyy,’ said Rob, shimmying back into Juanita. ‘So tell me h’about jourself.’
‘OK, I’m Dan, I’m twenty-nine and I work in market research.’
‘H’and are you h’well endowed?’
‘What?’
I appealed to the bench with an imploring look.
‘Answer the question, counsellor,’ said Hannah.
‘Financially?’ continued Juanita. ‘Jou have a good wage h’and pension?’
‘Well, y’know, average I think. Nothing to be ashamed of and it could…get bigger?’
‘Very goo-ood. And would you like children? A familia?’
The atmosphere in the room began to crackle a little and the thawing tension iced up again.
‘Um…Yes. Yes, I would, one day, I guess.’
I flicked a look across at Hannah, who was now looking away from the table, studying nail varnish that did look as if it needed a touch up.
‘How many?’ continued Juanita. ‘When? I h’want three children and a stud ranch.’
‘Um, some day? A couple maybe?’
‘Are you sure? You know this hees jour final answer?’
‘Err…’
‘Be’horse theese date may be taken down h’and used in evidence You can stop doing things you used to do, but you can’t take back what you’ve said.’
Hannah just got up and left. The slammed living-room door echoed for what felt like minutes.
‘See what I have to put up with?’ said Rob, leaning back in his chair. ‘Welcome to my world these days.’
‘Is she OK?’
‘Nyahh. Pissed off ‘cos I was out late last night. Little row turned into a big one. The future. Kids. All the sort of stuff you want to talk about after a night trying to prove the point that tequila shots aren’t just for kids.’
‘Don’t you think you were being a bit…?’
‘You should’ve been here earlier. The silent treatment only interrupted for some occasional niggly picking. Probably because her friends bailed on her and she had a crappy Friday night, which is hardly my responsibility.’
‘Seems a bit of a jump from you coming in drunk to the baby stuff,’ I said.
‘But if we’re not going to grow up and do what regular couples do, I don’t see why I should have to start acting like a grown-up. This is the freedom she’s wanting to keep.’
‘Yeah, but—’
Hannah came back into the room, and I shut up. Her cheeks were still reddened, but her eyes were flaring as if she was ready to take on anything. I was a bit scared as she walked straight across the room to me at the desk.
‘Here, I got this for you,’ she said.
‘A badge of Joey from Friends?’
‘You can put it on the inside lapel of your jacket on your date. For luck and inspiration.’
‘Right…’
‘If things get tricky have a glance at it, think what would Joey do? Then do the opposite of that; you’re not really cut out to be Joey.’
‘Where’d you get it?’ I asked
‘Affleck’s Palace,’ said Rob, looking at Hannah. ‘I got it for you just before the end-of-year exams in the first year.’
‘It doesn’t matter if you’re dumb if you’re good-looking enough was the sentiment behind it, I think,’ mused Hannah. ‘Never could work out if it was meant to apply to me or you. But…no more exams being done around here.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, pinning it on my jumper, looking guiltily at Rob, who was trying to look as if it were no big deal.
‘So how are things going with Juanita?’ Hannah asked.
‘Dan made an indecent suggestion involving a matador outfit and the soundtrack to Evita, so she chucked a drink in his face and left,’ explained Rob. ‘You’re up next.’
‘Eh?’ I said.
‘Let’s go again. This time you can practise on a real woman.’
‘I think we’ve done enough, haven’t we? You must be bored…’
‘Come on, Dan,’ said Hannah. ‘You can buy me a drink and wow me with stories about your favourite tube stations.’
‘Yeah, sport, I demand that you try and chat up my wife.’
Either their flat’s temperamental old central heating had suddenly kicked it up a few notches, or I was blushing at the idea.
‘Now let’s do the whole coming-in-again thing. You’re still you, and Hannah’s—’
‘I
vanka, a fashion model from Moscow. If my ex-boyfriend the oil oligarch discovers we are here he will kill us both.’
‘Give me his number. I’m gonna call him.’
‘Places, people, places,’ said Rob.
As I retired the two steps to my corner of the room and Hannah manoeuvred her way to the table — managed while still not looking at, or in any way touching, her husband — Rob’s phone rang.
That central heating was causing all sorts of problems because at the sound of the ringtone the atmosphere in the room plunged back towards icy.
‘Work,’ said Rob, pointedly waving his phone from Hannah to me and back, so we could see the caller display. He answered with a snappy ‘ahoy-hoy!’ and headed out of the room towards the bedroom, pulling the door shut behind him.
Hannah looked suddenly deflated. She sat at the table looking into space, her chin in her hands, and her hands clasped together as if in prayer.
‘You all right?’ I asked. ‘You look a bit like you’ve done twelve rounds with Tyson.’
‘I’m fine. Although that’s a strange thing to say on a first date.’
I sat down across from her at the table, hands fidgeting in front of me.
‘You still want to do this?’
‘Another thing not to say at the start of a date. Come on, you need the practice. Proper date talk.’
‘So what’s your star sign?’
‘There we go, much better,’ she said with a grin.
There was a silence. Hannah looked distracted, trying to listen in on a conversation she couldn’t hear.
‘Say something nice about me,’ she said, turning to me, her head very suddenly back in the room.
‘What?’
‘Anything! How I look. What I’m wearing. Doesn’t even have to be true. Just something nice.’
‘Those flannel tracksuit bottoms really bring out the colour of your eyes?’
‘You can do better than that. Ivanka needs to be wooed.’
‘You get a very cute dimple out of nowhere when you get that mischievous smile.’