by Neal Doran
‘Long as no one pukes in the back,’ he replied.
We sat there in silence for a while, before Hannah stretched across the divide enforced by our seat belts and gave my thigh a punch.
‘Good party, matey. I needed that. Those women you work with? I think the clinical term is completely mental. The one with the swirly eyes? Yikes. And then Frenchie with her lolling about against the wall looking like she’s in a black and white movie? Eek. And that Weird Boring Chris is a dogger if ever I’ve seen one.’
‘And things with you…?’
‘Bup. Stop right there. I’m not one of your charity cases. I’m fine.’
Another punch to the thigh was meted out, then my hand was grabbed, and fingers entwined, resting against my leg.
‘Up this road here?’ the taxi driver asked as we came through Tooting, carrying on past the shortest route to Wimbledon.
‘Just keep going, thanks, mate,’ confirmed Hannah next to me. As we passed the tube station and went beyond the supermarket on the way to mine I could honestly say I wasn’t expecting what was going to happen next.
Or couldn’t believe it.
Or didn’t want to think about it in advance, because thinking about it would only have stopped me.
‘Dammit, I should have nicked someone’s cigarettes,’ said Hannah. ‘Seven years not smoking and just that one I had with Jamie in the garden has totally got me hooked again.’
I didn’t reply to her, I just took a deep breath and told the taxi driver to take a left where the road forked, and the next left straight after that.
‘I’ll get out here too, cheers,’ Hannah told the driver outside my block and handed him a crumpled couple of notes she’d quickly dug out of her bag. We didn’t speak as we got out of the car, and stood together in the car park as the driver pulled away before we could cross over towards the entrance. It was as we walked across the frosted tarmac with her arm around my waist and my hand draped across her shoulder that I turned again to kiss her, and this time there was no pulling back from Hannah. A soft kiss was followed by a harder one and then our hands started fumbling under each other’s coats like teenagers. It was not long after that that I had to step away for a minute, certain I was going to be sick. But now I didn’t think it was the drink that had caused it.
We somehow made it upstairs — my memory jumped forward a bit there to our getting to my front door. When we weren’t all over each other the tension seemed to come rushing back and the significance of what we were doing was wordlessly present. I fumbled through my coat pockets trying to find my keys, and, when I did find them, struggled to isolate the right one, and then get the door open.
‘I can’t seem to get it in,’ I grumbled to myself.
‘That doesn’t bode well,’ replied Hannah.
We looked at each other and both started giggling hysterically at that. Hannah took the set of keys from me, found the right one to actually open the door and let us in. We didn’t talk, and we didn’t turn on the lights, but headed straight for my room where, in the orange glow of the street light outside, we watched each other take off our clothes.
‘You look beau—’ I said.
‘Shh.’
‘You know I think I might—’
‘Shh.’
‘Are you sure…?’ I asked.
‘Shuddup.’
Then, with all the awkward grabbing, the false starts, the bumping and cramping, but most of all the intense wanting it to happen, it happened. Afterwards we lay apart, before Hannah inched closer towards me. ‘Wow’, she said, with her head rested on my chest. I ran my fingers through her hair, but I couldn’t see her face. I wished I could say I’d felt ecstatically triumphant, or epically guilty at that point, but I mainly just felt drunk, tired, and overwhelmingly confused. Shutting down, and shutting everything out, I’d fallen asleep with my arm going dead under Hannah’s shoulder. She hadn’t said anything more, but the last thing I remembered as I drifted away was the feel of a hot, fat tear dropping onto my chest, and Hannah burrowing closer to me.
‘BweeorghARGHorghorghARGHbweughurghurghurgh. Urk,’ is probably as close as I can get to putting into words my physical reaction, while clinging onto the sides of the toilet bowl, to remembering in full what had happened the night before.
I’d seduced and slept with the wife of my closest friend of my adult life.
‘Bwop-bwop bweARRRRRGGGGHHH.’
I’d fallen in love with her and made my move and now she’d gone.
‘Argh-heeyleyolleeyarghhhhYURGGHH.’
It was the stupidest thing I’d ever done in my life, and I didn’t know how I was going to face anyone again.
‘GreeYEOOOO-wud-wud-wurk.’
Also that kebab I’d had between pub and party had clearly still not been digested very much.
I flushed the toilet and knelt in front of it, not confident enough to go any distance in case I needed it again. I crouched there, staring at the bowl and the occasional drip of water coming down from the cistern, my mind going over the same accusations of wasted opportunities, sexual incompetence, and betrayal. It got to the point where my brain even started trying to distract itself from the recriminations, and I found I was thinking instead about how something similar happened once in Mad Men. Then wondering if I’d Sky+ed the new series, then thinking I’d do a catch up of missed episodes some evening soon, with a nice hot chocolate, all cosy on the beanbag.
But before long I remembered again the events that had me prostrate before the lavatory, sending the guilt washing over me into another spin cycle. I cursed my attention span for deciding today was the day it was going to really keep to the matters in hand.
Then the phone rang. I thought about not answering it in case it was Hannah, then thought about answering it in case it was Hannah. The latter hope of speaking to her eventually trumped the fear of the same thing. Grabbing onto the door, I limped to the phone by my bed and picked it up.
‘Hey, sport, it’s me.’
‘Rob.’
‘Listen, I’m sorry for calling so early on a Sunday, but I’ve been up all night,’ he said, sounding jittery and on edge. ‘I think she’s left me, buddy.’
The room swam around me in several directions at once while I tried to think of what to say, and realised what I might have caused to happen.
‘Jesus, shit, what are you saying? Are you sure? What’s happened?’
‘I got in late last night after a work thing, and she wasn’t here, and she hasn’t come back. I’ve been calling and texting for hours and haven’t heard anything. I don’t know what to do, Dan. I don’t know what to do.’
‘Slow…slow down a minute. What happened yesterday?’
‘I’ve called Angus and Sarah, but they say she left just after I did. They said she’d seemed a bit upset or angry. Our room’s a state with clothes everywhere but nothing seems to be missing. You don’t think she’s done something stupid, do you? Can I come around? I’m going fucking nuts here.’
The idea of Rob coming around was horrific. I imagined trying to reassure my friend that everything would be fine for them, and that Hannah was probably just a bit grumpy with him — just as he found a pair of his wife’s knickers down the back of the cushions. And I couldn’t believe that even at a time like this the thought of Hannah’s knickers was distracting me.
‘Don’t come over,’ I said quickly. ‘You’ll want to stay there in case she gets back, and should be by the phone in case she rings. I’ll get dressed and come over.’
With that, and some half-hearted reassurances that everything would be fine, we hung up. Why did I say that I’d go around? I wondered to myself. What was I going to say? What was I going to do?
One thing I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to be able to function until I had a very large, very sweet cup of tea.
Kettle on, I stumbled back into the bathroom for a quick shower, paranoid that there’d be traces of Hannah lingering when I saw Rob. While I was shampooing my hair I star
ted to think about how she’d looked as her jeans had dropped to the floor, and her top had come off over her head. And the way her mouth had tasted when we’d kissed in the car park.
Then I thought how Rob had sounded, so helpless and vulnerable and panicked, and felt like a bastard in a way I’d never felt like a bastard before.
Dressed, and with the most obvious physical evidence of guilt washed away, I headed into the kitchen for more headache pills and that tea. I looked at the clock. It’d been a good couple of hours now since Hannah had left, and it was only a twenty-minute walk home. Could she have had an accident? I couldn’t let morbidity add another layer of stress; I figured we’d have heard of any Sunday morning traffic smash by now.
What if she’d just gone for a long walk, and was back home by the time I arrived there? And had told Rob that the night before she’d just gone to a party with me, and crashed at mine?
That’d mean I’d arrive at Rob’s just in time to try and explain why I hadn’t thought to bring up this obviously pertinent information to my obviously distraught best pal and that, now I thought of it, his wife had kipped on my sofa the night before, and I was sorry I forgot to mention it.
Without stopping to think about it too much, I picked up my phone and called Hannah’s mobile. While I was expecting it to at least ring a couple of times, it went straight to message, and after the shiver I felt just from hearing her say, ‘Hi, this is Hannah, leave a message,’ I didn’t know what to say.
‘It’s me,’ I finally managed. ‘Look…’
I refused to say the phrase ‘about last night’, but was tongue-tied trying to think of something else.
‘Rob called. I’ve not said anything. I’m going around now. I… You… Um. Hope you’re OK. Speak to you soon. Take care now.’
Take care now? Swearing to myself about another stupid answering-machine message, I grabbed a coat and headed out of the door.
The morning was another cold and fresh one, and despite the bright sun the cars were still frosted over — although I definitely detected one that looked as if the side windows had been rubbed clear of any icy condensation by the pressure of someone’s winter coat writhing against it in the middle of the night. I walked briskly towards the Harrisons’, or as briskly I could on the icy pavement. My hangover now was a distant memory as the nerves and adrenalin took hold again.
I had twenty minutes or so to work out what I was going to say, and to work out just how it was that I’d got myself in this situation.
Barely a month ago, in the wake of finding I could only get someone to get naked in my vicinity by accidentally leading them to believe I was a tragic widower, I’d despaired of ever meeting someone. Fed up with seeing the arseholes and the liars and selfish pricks get the girls, I’d figured that for my own dignity and self-respect the only thing I could do was become an eccentric recluse. That plan hadn’t quite worked out though, thanks to the Harrisons, and subsequent events suggested being a selfish, lying arsehole wasn’t going to be enough for me to get the girl either.
There were some awful things people could do to other people, both friends and strangers, when they were looking for someone to love. People tried too hard with the wrong people, and didn’t try hard enough with the right ones. Friendship could be forgotten, or taken for granted and under-appreciated. Friendship could also turn into something else.
But at what cost?
People could excuse anything they did, regardless of how hateful, if they could convince themselves they were doing it out of love. But when in life did you stop doing things for other people? Putting what someone else wanted ahead of what you did?
And was doing the decent thing the wrong thing if it was based on dishonesty, and you were lying to yourself? In the end didn’t the cracks always show?
And hang on, what if someone else involved wasn’t doing the decent thing either? Did that mean all bets were off?
And how many more rhetorical questions could I ask myself, drawing bigger and bigger platitudes from more and more specific circumstances to try and justify my situation?
Would there still be time to quit while I was ahead?
Coming into South Wimbledon, I passed the off-licence and convenience store, and thought about popping in to see if the guy who ran it would be up for selling me a couple of miniature bottles of Dutch courage. But then I figured I’d wait for that kind of drinking until all this was sorted and my life had entirely fallen apart. I would need the booze to warm me ahead of another night sleeping under a bridge yelling random accusations about the disintegration of my life at strangers coming back from the cinema.
Two minutes later I arrived at the door to Rob and Hannah’s place. Standing there, I considered ringing the doorbell for the nice old lady with the cats who lived in the downstairs flat. She’d always seemed very friendly and non-confrontational. We could maybe have a cuppa and share some stories about worming instead.
But after straightening up my coat, and faffing with my hair to cover the fading but still present bruise on my face, I took a big deep breath and pressed the buzzer marked ‘The Harrisons’.
And I knew what it was that I had to do.
Chapter Twenty
‘Dan,’ said Rob as he bear-hugged me at the top of the stairs.
I was off balance, having been grabbed before my back foot could gain traction on the landing, and I had to wave my arms wildly to make sure the two of us weren’t found with broken necks and in a very intimate embrace at the bottom of the stairwell. Having regained my balance, I responded with a standard manly back pat. This resulted in Rob pulling me in closer and sinking his head into my shoulder. All the tension that had been creeping in between us lately, about the way he’d treated Hannah, the way he’d treated me, and the way I’d treated him, all of that was forgotten in that moment, as one man turned to another in a physical embrace seeking honest comradely comfort.
I was completely overcome with total awkwardness and panic and I really, really just wanted it to stop.
Still, I knew shoving him away with an, ‘Oi! Gerroff!’ would be wrong, and so was torn between gently prising him away to administer a cheery upper-arm punch and a ‘chin up’, or pulling him closer so I didn’t have to see that the convulsions shaking his shoulders were the result of his sobbing on me. One thing I did know was that I really wasn’t ready for dealing with this kind of naked emotion.
‘There, um, there…’ I said with a back rub as I shuffled us away from the edge of the stairs, knocking a plant off its table as I went. Despite having already been to the gym once this year, to be honest I was beginning to struggle a little under the weight of a fully grown, limply weeping man.
‘I’ve done this! She’s gone!’ he cried into my ear, before letting out a remorseful wail that started low and turned into a howl that shrivelled my spinal cord and was frankly a little over-dramatic.
I wriggled my shoulders out of his grasp to try and get a bit of distance between us, deciding I’d definitely now done my bit for open, modern male bonding.
‘Hold me!’ he cried.
Apparently, it hadn’t been enough. I gave him another consoling pat on the back, which caused him to pat me on the back too. It was quite firm, and a little painful really, so I patted him back harder. And he patted me back harder. So I patted him back harder. With two big open hands he patted me back even harder, and by that point we were both just whacking each other as hard as we could on the back with these sympathetic pats. The last couple though, I’d have to admit to using my knuckles to really get a couple of shots in the kidneys. I couldn’t help it — it was a defence mechanism against having my ribs shattered by a tearful man on the brink of emotional breakdown.
Finally he took a step back to look at me, and I remembered Mark Stephens, the toughest nine-year-old in my primary school. He was a boy nobody had ever seen cry, until one day when an innocuous fall from a climbing frame onto playground concrete caused his face to go purple and contort into this rictus of o
utrage and pain. Of course later we learnt that he’d fractured his ankle in the landing, and would be in a cast for months, but at the time the sudden unexpected display of jarring and fake-looking emotion had everyone pointing and laughing. It was a lot like the face Rob was pulling now. Rob stood there with big mournful eyes and his bottom lip stuck out like a brave little soldier.
‘Come on, old man,’ I said, ‘sit yourself down. I’ll get you a cuppa.’
Robotically Rob shuffled to the sofa and crashed down, staring into the middle distance, and I scuttled to the kitchen.
‘Actually I’ll have a coffee, please,’ he sniffed as I got together cups and waited for the water to boil. ‘And there’s proper stuff in the fridge, the Colombian, not the instant.’
‘Just because you’re heartbroken doesn’t mean you should have to tolerate inferior beverages, I suppose,’ I muttered to myself as I dug out the cafetière and a measuring spoon.
‘Sorry for the outburst, sport. All got a bit much for me.’
I looked around the small cramped kitchen, and thought of all the times the three of us had squeezed in here getting pasta and drinks ready, taking the piss out of each other, or railing against a world that in one way or another hadn’t treated one of us with the respect and wonder we deserved. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle as I could almost feel the times Hannah would have slid past me with a hand on the small of my back, or a casual stroke of my arm. Or when I’d give her shoulders a rub while Rob mixed cocktails and she complained about the halfwits at her office. Just the stuff of being friends, but now it seemed different.
Of course, the other thing that seemed a bit different was that I didn’t know then that Rob and Hannah’s marriage was on a knife edge, and I hadn’t betrayed my best pal by luring his wife into a drunken shag.
But it wasn’t like that! I insisted to myself, banging the teaspoon on the Formica counter. I…I…I love her, I finally confessed, banging the spoon again. And that bastard in the next room — I banged the spoon — has cheated on her — bang — diminished her — bang — disrespected her choices — bang — and I wasn’t going to stand for that any more. Bang. Bang. Bang.