Seeing Other People

by Gayle, Mike

  ‘That’s the one!’ I replied, hoping he hadn’t noticed that I’d completely forgotten their names. ‘Pleased to meet you Zach and Melody, just take a seat over there next to the—’

  I was stopped in my tracks by the sound of bellowing. A huge hulk of a guy in his late forties with peroxide blond shoulder-length hair and the walk and demeanour of a retired WWE wrestler was yelling questions at the studio’s pretty receptionist even though she was sitting less than two feet away from him.

  ‘I’m here for a magazine shoot!’ he boomed in a heavy New Zealand accent that was straight out of Flight of the Conchords. ‘Bloke who’s organising it is called Joe Cook . . . or Cart or something like that.’

  The receptionist – presumably terrified that he was about to lift her up and throw her across the room – pointed in my direction.

  ‘All right mate?’ he yelled down the corridor as though he was attempting to be heard over a crowd. ‘Don’t mind telling you this place has been a right bugger to find!’

  This couldn’t be right. I had a photo on my phone of my last interviewee. He was a guy called Rajesh, in his mid-twenties, who looked a lot like an Indian Brad Pitt. This guy with his denim shirt open to the waist, leather trousers and cowboy boots looked like a stand-in for Dog the Bounty Hunter.

  ‘I think there might have been some sort of mistake,’ I said quickly as I noticed the two small sandy-haired double–denim-dressed boys trailing after him. I made a big show of checking my list in the hope that this might rein him in a little. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Van Halen.’

  Surely I couldn’t have heard that properly. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Van Halen,’ said the man. ‘Like the band.’ He sang a couple of the opening bars to ‘Jump’ surprisingly well. ‘I changed it by deed poll. You can call me Van though, everyone does.’

  This was all too much. I needed it to stop this very second. ‘The thing is . . . Van, I’m actually waiting for a Rajesh Bhatnagar.’

  ‘Yeah I know, dude’s my drummer and a bloody good one too. You should hear him do the solo from Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”. He kills it! Anyway, funny story: he was telling his ex-missus about the shoot last night and about how he’d need to take the kids out of school and long story short they’ve decided to give their thing another go. Knowing my circumstances he called me this morning and asked if I’d step in. I split up with my old girl a few months back, damn nearly killed me.’

  I should’ve known better than to ask the next question but I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘Why did you split up, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘She caught me with a groupie.’

  I had to stop myself from laughing. Of course he was in some awful band. Either that or he was a roadie. Again, I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘What kind of music do you play?’

  ‘We’re called Man Halen. We’re a Van Halen tribute band, formerly of Wellington, New Zealand, currently of Willesden Green.’ He looked down at the children. ‘And these are the twins: Harley and Suzuki.’

  If this had been happening to anyone other than me it would have made for the funniest story I’d heard in years. After all, what wasn’t amusing about hearing how some journalist had laid out thousands of pounds hiring a studio, a top notch photographer, stylist and make-up artist on behalf of his newspaper for a cover shoot and feature only to have the whole exercise undermined by the ropiest bunch of interviewees ever? But what could I do? I was under no illusions: Camilla would hate the results. Equally, if I cancelled everything and returned to the office empty-handed I’d be in even bigger trouble. For a moment I seriously considered begging some of the better-looking fathers I knew to come down to the studio with their kids and then making up their interviews afterwards but that was precisely the kind of escapade that would guarantee the sack.

  I shuddered as I cast a final look over at my interviewees who were chatting and laughing together like old friends. How did people get themselves into messes like theirs? Pitiful examples though they truly were, these men were what I was stuck with, my Divorced Dads’ Club. As I ushered them and the children towards the dressing rooms I took solace in the fact that as awful as the feature would undoubtedly be the one saving grace of the whole debacle was that this was one club of which I’d never have to become a member.

  4

  Despite Carl’s comment at the beginning of the shoot that he had the retouching house on speed dial the shoot actually went a lot better than I’d expected and the results, while not brilliant, were far from poor. Relieved at this news I’d agreed to join Carl and his assistant for a drink and so once we’d waved off the Divorced Dads and their kids, we’d helped pack up the studio before heading to the Hop and Grape, a down-at-heel pub around the corner from the studio.

  The guys, both single, clearly wanted to make a night of it but somewhere around my fourth pint I realised that if I didn’t leave now there was every danger that I wouldn’t make it home at all and so I said my goodbyes.

  Drunk, tired and feeling oddly emotional I left the pub and started following directions on my phone to the nearest overground train station. As I headed up the road my phone pinged. It was a text message from a number I didn’t recognise:

  Sorry to text you out of the blue like this (I asked Dave Walsh for number, hope is OK?). Wanted to thank you again for being so nice today. Would love to take you out for a drink sometime to carry on the conversation. Hope to see you soon, Bella xxx.

  Bella.

  I’d been thinking about her – or more accurately, trying my best not to think about her and failing miserably – all afternoon. I wasn’t mad was I? She had been flirting with me at the café. The coy smiles across the table, the way she’d hung on my every word like I was the smartest guy on earth and that touch, that touch had been electric and had left me feeling on top of the world. On the very day that my bosses had let me know just how little they thought of me I’d received validation from this smart, sexy, confident young woman. Where in every other sphere of my existence I felt like I was old news Bella had made me feel like I was worldly and interesting. To her I wasn’t just an anonymous old hack with the best of my career behind me, I was a successful journalist at the top of my game, and a published author who happened to have written her all-time favourite book.

  It was flattering. How could it not have been? She was gorgeous. But the truth is I wasn’t at all in the market for an affair. Don’t get me wrong: as a husband I was by no means perfect. And if I’m being totally honest I’ll admit from time to time to having had minor crushes on women other than Penny. But these were crushes, nothing more, and while Penny might not exactly have been over the moon had she been aware of their existence to me at least they weren’t signs of a desire to betray my wife; rather proof that I was still alive and kicking. I no more wanted these women in any real sense than I wanted to walk on the moon or score a winning goal for England in a World Cup final. It was the stuff of fantasy, pure and simple, but this thing with Bella felt different, it felt dangerous, and I wanted no part of it.

  I quickly tapped out a reply to her message: Was good to meet you too. Not sure how I’m fixed for next week. Quite busy. Maybe another time J

  I pressed Send and breathed a huge sigh of relief as I thought about my afternoon with the Divorced Dads’ Club. If flirting with a woman nearly thirteen years your junior wasn’t a guaranteed way of joining the club then I didn’t know what was. Turning her down was absolutely the right thing to do.

  An electronic ping. A reply from Bella: That’s a shame L. How did shoot go?

  Nervously I tapped out a quick reply: OK. Interviewees=ropey. Have been to pub to de-stress! On way home now.

  An electronic ping. Another message: So you’re still out? I’m out too! Have been for drinks for friend’s birthday so am v. tipsy. Everyone’s heading home now but I want to carry on. Why don’t you join me and I’ll buy you that drink we talked about!

  She w
asn’t making this easy was she? I tapped out another message: I’d love to but I can’t, and in an instant I received her reply: How about if I promise not to keep you out too late?

  It was time for a different line of defence. Really I can’t, I wrote. Have loads on at work tomorrow. In a matter of seconds I received her reply: You work too hard! Everybody needs to let their hair down a little! I’m only in the Sun and Thirteen Cantons. You could be here in no time.

  This was all too much for me. In spite of the boost it was giving my ego I knew it couldn’t go any further. I returned my phone to my jacket pocket. I had to get out of here, to somewhere safe where I wouldn’t be tempted to make any stupid decisions. I scanned the street for a taxi to take me home but the only cabs I could see were already occupied. I resolved to just keep walking and continued on up the road but then there was that all-too-familiar electronic ping from inside my jacket. I made up my mind to ignore it. No good could come from becoming embroiled in a game of text tennis. If I didn’t take part I couldn’t get in any trouble.

  I managed to get a good thirty feet up the road before the insistent ping of the phone got the better of me. I took out the phone and checked her message: Pretty please? This was getting ridiculous. She was practically begging me to meet her. Was she really as drunk as she was making out? She had to be surely. I never had that much confidence when I was twenty-five.

  I stared at my phone wondering how best to reply and then finally it hit me. I could just switch off my phone and have done with the whole thing until morning, by which time she’d be sober and so would I meaning that we could just get on with the business of avoiding each other forever. As I pressed down on the button that would cut off our communication for good I received another text that proved impossible to ignore: I promise you won’t regret it!

  I promise you won’t regret it.

  Was she saying what I think she was saying?

  I promise you won’t regret it.

  This wasn’t just my imagination, was it?

  I promise you won’t regret it.

  I was a thirty-eight-year-old failed novelist and hack and she was a young, attractive woman with her whole life ahead of her and if I wasn’t mistaken she had just sent me a text outlining the fact that she wanted to sleep with me. Out of all the men alive in the world at this moment in time this beautiful woman wanted me and all I needed to do to make it happen between us was to jump in a cab and meet her.

  But I couldn’t, could I?

  It would be wrong in every way.

  I’d always sworn I’d never cheat on Penny.

  I just wasn’t that kind of guy.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I couldn’t believe how close I’d come to crossing the line. Once again I determined to turn off my phone but then in came another message: YOLO x.

  Her message brought me to a standstill. It was the phrase that had been rolling around in my head ever since the day of Fiona’s funeral: You only live once. And it was true wasn’t it? This was the only life I was going to get and here I was wasting it. Did I really want to die speculating about all the things I never did or the paths I’d never taken? Did I really want to look back on this moment in my old age and wonder: What if?

  Racked with indecision I looked up from my phone to see a heavy-set young man of seventeen, maybe eighteen, dressed top to toe in sportswear approaching me. In his hand was an unlit cigarette.

  ‘Got a light mate?’

  I was momentarily confused. Around his neck on a silver chain I could quite clearly see a silver Zippo lighter. Maybe he’d run out of lighter fuel. Either way as a non-smoker I couldn’t help him. ‘No, sorry,’ I replied. ‘I don’t—’ I stopped suddenly as I became aware of a heavy, sweet-smelling perfume and sensed someone lurking behind me. I tried to turn around but before I could I felt a short, sharp shock of pain across the back of my skull and everything went black and then the next thing I knew I was waking up naked in Bella’s bed.

  5

  It was a little after six thirty by the time I reached the office having picked up a coffee on the way in a bid to sharpen my wits. Even though I was convinced that George, the security guard who often worked the reception desk in the early mornings, wouldn’t remember which clothes I’d been wearing the day before let alone care that I was in them now I still felt it necessary to speed past him as quickly as possible, explaining that I was rushing because I was expecting an important call from Japan. George barely glanced up from his copy of the Mirror, making it clear to me that as long as I had my security pass my business held precisely no interest for him whatsoever.

  The office was empty save for the guys in the post room doing their early rounds and so I made my way to the shower in the gents’ toilets and was about to start getting undressed when my phone rang. I checked the screen. It was Penny. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to let the call go to voicemail but the guilt I felt was so intense that ‘easy’ made me feel like I was adding insult to injury.

  ‘Hey you,’ I said brightly. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Hey, Dad, it’s me.’ It was Jack. Hearing his voice threw me completely.

  ‘What’s wrong, son? Is everything OK? Where’s Mum?’

  ‘She’s just here,’ said Jack. ‘She’s getting the bowls out for breakfast. I’m having Frosties and Rosie’s having Rice Krispies.’

  ‘That’s good,’ I replied, still wondering why Penny had let him call. ‘You like Frosties don’t you?’

  ‘I love them, they’re my favourite.’ There was a long pause and I could hear Penny whispering, ‘Don’t forget to tell Daddy why you’re calling.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Jack, who had clearly become distracted. ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Scooby Doo’s not for babies is it?’

  ‘No, son. Why?’

  ‘Because Lucas at school said that it is, and it’s not, is it?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I reassured him. ‘They solve mysteries and they’re always getting chased by ghosts and zombies. There’s nothing babyish about zombies, is there?’

  ‘I knew it,’ said Jack victoriously. ‘Lucas doesn’t know everything, does he Daddy?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ I replied. ‘So is that it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jack. ‘Hang on because Mum wants to speak to you.’

  I waited as Jack – who was clearly having problems concentrating on anything this morning – finally handed the phone to Penny.

  ‘Hey you,’ she said. ‘Sorry about calling so early, it’s just that he woke up at five and started on about this whole Lucas Taylor/Scooby Doo thing and was completely inconsolable until I said that he could call you. How’s your head this morning? Heavy night was it?’

  ‘You could say that. Rosie’s OK?’

  ‘She’s fine, she’s still up in her room. I take it you’re heading straight to work?’

  ‘That’s the plan.’

  ‘Well in that case, I’ll see you tonight. Love you.’

  I felt like a monster saying it back given what I’d just done. How could I say I loved her and mean it if I’d just slept with someone else? Regardless, I knew I had to force the words out.

  ‘Love you too. See you tonight.’

  Ending the call I had a quick shower and went back to my desk and turned on my computer. I needed to know why I couldn’t remember anything at all about my night with Bella. A quick Google suggested a number of possibilities from mild stroke through to dementia, but the explanation that seemed most likely was something called dissociative amnesia: a temporary or permanent memory loss brought about by stressful or traumatic situations. This seemed to fit as I couldn’t think of anything more stressful than having cheated on the woman I loved. Maybe my subconscious had reached the same assessment while I’d been asleep and had blocked out all memory of the previous evening in order to save me from having a complete and utter meltdown. Oddly enough, even having Google-diagnosed myself with a pretty major psychological disorder, I cons
idered this the least of my problems and filed it away at the back of my mind to be worked on another day. As far as I was concerned, right now, my biggest problems were trying not to drown in the tsunami of guilt I was feeling about cheating on Penny and worrying about how exactly I was going to deal with seeing Bella face to face for the first time since the night before.

  Like the coward I was, I did everything humanly possible to avoid Bella that day. I avoided the arts desk like the plague, leaped at every opportunity to take a meeting out of the office and any time she so much as looked like she might be about to approach my desk I’d buttonhole the person nearest me and attempt to launch into a deep and meaningful conversation about life, the universe and everything. It was childish stuff, I’ll admit, and not at all becoming to a man of my age and station but if I knew anything at all, it was this: I didn’t want to talk to Bella again. Not now, not ever.

  Leaving work just after seven, having waited a good three-­quarters of an hour after I’d seen Bella packing up for the day, I felt sure I was safe but as I emerged from the office building through the revolving doors I spotted her leaning against the barriers near the main road. Though she didn’t move I knew she had seen me and in saying nothing she was giving me one final opportunity not to disappoint her more than I already had.

  ‘You must be shattered,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘What are you still doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for you,’ she replied. ‘Were you hoping I’d be gone by now?’

  ‘No . . . of course not. Is that what you think? That I’ve been avoiding you? Of course I haven’t, it’s just that—’

  ‘There’s no need,’ she said firmly. She reached into her bag and took out my watch. ‘I only waited because I wanted to give you this.’

  I took the watch from her, put it on and shoved my hands deep into my pockets. This was it. My moment of truth. There was nowhere left to hide.

  ‘Listen . . .’ I had to raise my voice so as not to be drowned out by the sound of a passing articulated lorry. ‘Do you want to go somewhere and talk?’