Ralph's Party

by Lisa Jewell

  Ralph had been momentarily speechless. He’d breathed in deeply as he felt his heart fill with a mixture of joy and horror. Smith still loved Cheri! In spite of Jem, in spite of everything. This was wonderful news.

  But it was terrible news, too. Poor Jem. She didn’t deserve this. As much as he wanted Smith and Jem to split up, as much he wanted her for himself, he couldn’t bear the thought of her being treated so badly by anyone.

  ‘Oh, my God, Smith. I thought this was all over. I thought you were over this. What the fuck are you playing at?’ He’d eyed Smith with horror and disgust.

  ‘I thought I was, too. I thought it was over. But then I saw her tonight and … and, well, God. She’s just so beautiful. And I can talk to her, Ralph. I can really talk to her …’

  ‘But what about Jem? You can talk to Jem, too. I’ve never met a woman as easy to talk to as Jem …’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I know that. But Jem’s Jem and Cheri is something completely different …’

  ‘What, Smith? What is Cheri? What the fuck is going on here?’

  ‘OΚ. OK. Keep your undies on. Look. I don’t know. I don’t know, all right!’ Smith had put his head in his hands. ‘Christ – talk about pissing on a bloke’s fireworks. Jeez …’

  ‘Look, Smith. I am not here to piss on your fireworks. I’m here to point out to you that you have a girlfriend. Remember? Jem? Sweet, trusting, loyal, faithful, loving Jem? Christ …’He looked away, revolted. ‘So,’ he sighed resignedly, ‘what happened next?’

  Smith brightened a little and sat up straighter. ‘Well, so, we were in Oriel, chatting, drinking wine, just getting on, really. And she was telling me all about herself, about how she used to have loads of lovers, but now she’s got rid of them all because – and get this – she’s looking for Mr Right! Is that amazing, or what! She’s basically cleared the decks for the right man. It’s got to be, hasn’t it? It’s got to be me! I’ve waited five years, I’ve wanted that woman for five years, I’ve dreamed about her, I’ve thought about her, I’ve even … Shit, I’ve even imagined her when I’ve been in bed with Jem …’

  Ralph wrinkled his face in distaste. ‘You really are a cunt, aren’t you?’

  ‘Jem was just all a big part of the way things panned out. Jem took my mind off Cheri for long enough for my obsession to shrink to a manageable size, so that when Cheri was ready for me, I wouldn’t blow it. D’you see? It’s all timing. It’s destiny.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in all that.’

  ‘I don’t … I didn’t. I do now. I didn’t believe in Jem’s destiny, but I believe in my own. This is it, Ralph. This is it!’

  ‘This is what?! Will you please tell me what the fuck is going on? You have a drink with the girl from upstairs, she tells you she’s not going out with anyone at the moment and you’re already making plans for the future. I mean – what? He shrugged and held up his hands in frustration. ‘You’re just going to dump Jem, are you? Just throw her away like a used tissue?’

  ‘Fuck, Ralph – I can’t believe you’re reacting like this! I thought you’d be pleased, excited for me. You know how long I’ve been in love with that woman, you know the hell I’ve been through. Christ, before Jem came along I hadn’t had sex for five years. Five years! Do you have any idea what that feels like? Jem’s been great for me, really great. She’s brought me out of myself, reminded me about shared physicality, about sharing everything. And, no, I’m not going to dump her. Not yet, anyway. It’s still early days for me and Cheri. I’ve got to earn her trust. Just because I know we’re meant for each other, it doesn’t mean that she’ll know. No, I’ve got to take it slowly …’

  ‘ … and meanwhile, you’ll just tag good ol’ Jem along for the ride, will you? Smith, I’m horrified. I am horrified and I am disgusted by you. In fact, I am so disgusted by you that I can no longer talk to you.’ Ralph stood up and looked down at his friend. ‘Jem is just about the best person I have ever known – no, actually, she is the best person I have ever known, and I refuse to sit here and allow you to treat her like this. I’m going to tell her, and I’m going to tell her now!’

  Smith leapt to his feet. ‘Don’t you fucking dare! Don’t you fucking dare! One word, just one word leaves your lips and you’re homeless, mate’ – his face was millimetres from Ralph’s – ‘and I mean that. One word, and you’re out of here. You’re my mate, Ralph,’ he said, running his fingers through his hair, ‘and I hope you’ll always be my mate. But mates stick together, don’t they? They don’t take sides with girls. You’ve known me for fifteen years. You’ve known Jem for fifteen minutes. It’s your choice. OK? But don’t think I wouldn’t do it. Because I would.’

  He’d picked up the remote control, then, stretched his legs out on to the coffee table and switched on the telly.

  Ralph had looked at him there on the sofa in his rumpled suit and tie, his blandly handsome face bare of feeling, and wondered for one stupefied moment how a girl as perceptive, wise and reasonable as Jem had ever thought that an emotional cabbage like Smith could be the right man for her, the man she’d been dreaming about since she was sixteen.

  Ralph quietly and sadly left the room, and headed straight for his bedroom.

  He hadn’t got a wink of sleep that night. His emotions were all over the place. Excitement, because he knew something that would put a speedy end to Jem’s silly infatuation with Smith. Frustration, because to tell her would be apocalyptic. Feelings of hypocrisy, because he was no angel himself. He felt sorry for Smith because he was an arsehole, and he felt sorry for Jem because Smith was making a fool of her. In a way, this was all his dreams come true, confirmation of everything he’d always thought – that Smith was not worthy of Jem and her unconditional love. Confirmation that Smith didn’t deserve a girl like Jem.

  He tossed and turned and turned and tossed, his emotions going around in his head like marbles in a tumble-drier, and then he’d got up early, before Jem and Smith, and made his heavy-hearted way to the studio. He still hadn’t decided what he wanted to say when he’d phoned Jem, he just knew that he had to talk to her. They’d had such a wonderful weekend together and, despite the scene the night before with Smith, he didn’t want to break the spell.

  And now he was standing on the dreary platform of Limehouse DLR station, waiting impatiently for a rare sighting of a train, his mind still in total and utter pandemonium, wondering what the hell to do. Should he? Shouldn’t he? The complete devastation if he did. Smith would know it was him who’d told Jem and would throw him out of the flat. But then, he’d had a free ride for long enough now. Smith was going to settle down with someone at some point, whether it was Cheri, Jem or anyone else, and he’d be out on his ear then anyway.

  Maybe it was about time he learned to stand on his own two feet, stopped using Smith as a security blanket. But he’d have lost a friend, his best friend. Did that matter any more? He was vaguely surprised to feel a twinge of pain in his heart when he contemplated it. But it was nothing like the enormous spear of agony that pierced right through the fibre of his being when he imagined losing Jem; that really would be the greatest loss imaginable. Maybe Jem would hate him for telling her, for dismantling her happiness and taking apart her dreams. Maybe she’d take out her anger at Smith on him, direct her hurt and her disappointment at him. That would be the worst-case scenario – then he’d have lost everything.

  He realized that the safest possible alternative was to say nothing. Smith was a slimebag, he’d proved it now, and the best decision all round would be to say nothing, bide his time, capitalize on his wonderful relationship with Jem and then be there for her, help her to pick up the pieces when it all came tumbling down, as it was bound to, at some point in the future.

  But that was the problem – the vagueness of that concept: ‘some point in the future’. What sort of way was that to live a life, waiting for your best friend to break your true love’s heart before you could claim your destiny, before you could be happy? And, in any case, maybe
all this bullshit about Cheri would come to nothing and Smith would keep Jem hanging on in second place for the rest of their lives. Maybe he’d fuck up in ten years’ time when he and Jem had four children and a house in the country and invited Ralph over for dinner once or twice a year because they felt sorry for him. No. He couldn’t let that happen. He didn’t want to be staring wistfully and meaningfully at Jem over the dinner table when he was forty, still resenting Smith.

  A train finally slunk apologetically into view, and Ralph boarded it, too grateful for the warmth to feel angry about the wait.

  And then there was the matter of personal morals. In some people’s books, and maybe in Jem’s, reading someone else’s diaries would be perceived as being on a heinous par with infidelity. Did he really have any right to moralize about Smith’s actions? Did he have any right to unload Smith’s secret on to Jem without coming clean about his own sneaky, dishonest behaviour? Not really. But how could he do that? How could he tell Jem in one short sitting that (a) her boyfriend had been fantasizing about an unattainable woman he’d been in love with for five years while he was in bed with her, (b) her flatmate had been reading her diaries and snooping in her room for the best part of three months and (c) aforementioned flatmate was hopelessly, passionately and devotedly in love with her and wanted to spend the rest of his living days with her. And how’re you finding your jal frezi, by the way? Shit.

  As he made his way towards the Circle line, he was no closer to deciding what to do. Every option seemed to offer nothing but down-sides – not an up-side or a fringe benefit in sight. Where was the option that resulted in Jem realizing she was madly in love with Ralph, leaving Smith without telling him why and everyone living happily ever after? Non-existent, that was where.

  He’d have to play it by ear. See how he felt when he was sitting there in the restaurant, with Jem. Maybe she had her suspicions, you never know. Then he would only be confirming what she already knew, not maliciously sabotaging Smith’s life. Yes, that’s what he’d do. Plan nothing, decide nothing, Play It By Ear …

  The Tube finally arrived at Bayswater station and he tumbled off and up the stairs towards the bright lights and open-all-hours bazaar atmosphere of Queensway above. Jem wasn’t there yet. He glanced around him for a clock – it was six twenty-three. He stood at the lip of the station, his hands deep in his pockets, his nose starting to run slightly in the cold night air, brusquely dismissing thoughts from his head as they entered, chanting mantra-like to himself, Play It By Ear, Play It By Ear.

  An old woman in the opposite corner to him was muttering obscenities to herself and slowly hitching up yards and yards of filthy grey skirt. He looked away, embarrassed, but then couldn’t resist a quick look back. She was showing him her prune-like, hairless fanny and smiling at him through blackened, wizened teeth. That’s what you want, innit darlin’?’ she was chuntering. Ralph looked away again. How disgusting …

  Queensway never slept, but that was because no one English lived there – it was all company lets and pay-by-the-week hotels, Australians and Arabs and Africans, big-screen sports pubs, all-night coffee shops, noisy restaurants, and the sound of loud foreign chatter everywhere you went. It always felt vaguely like being on holiday when you were in Queensway. Not the place for cocoa and slippers and Coronation Street with your shepherd’s pie.

  Ralph glanced at the clock again, careful not to attract the attention of the repugnant female flasher still standing across from him and now, he suspected, urinating down the wall. It was six twenty-nine.

  Play It By Ear. Play It By Ear.

  ‘Who’s your mate?’

  Ralph spun around as he heard a soft female voice centimetres from his ear. It was Jem.

  ‘Oh, shit. Thank God. It’s you. I thought it was my knickerless friend over there.’

  ‘Lovely, isn’t she! Has she shown you her fanny yet?’

  They began to walk. ‘So, how was your day?’ Jem asked.

  ‘Oh, crap. Didn’t get a thing done …’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame. Why not?’

  ‘Just had a lot on my mind, I guess.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much. You know, just stuff …’

  ‘Anything you want to talk about?’

  ‘Nah – not really – maybe. I may bend your ear yet.’ Yes. That was good, Ralph thought. Lay the foundations for possibly discussing it later. ‘How was your day?’ He looked down and smiled at her. He loved that he had to look down to smile at her. It was so …so … beguiling …

  ‘Dreadful, absolutely dreadful. The Monday from Hell. But far too boring to talk about. So, tell me about this jal frezi.’

  They chatted as they walked, about curry, about this and that, about nothing. Ralph began to feel himself simmering to the surface like boiling milk, but he couldn’t turn the heat down. He didn’t want to make small talk. He didn’t want to pretend that they were just friends. He didn’t want to just go and have a curry with Jem and come home and watch Jem disappear into Smith’s slimy, second-rate arms. He wanted … he wanted … Play It By Ear, he reminded himself, Play It By Ear. But it was no good. He was playing it by ear and his ear was telling him to do it, to take a risk with everything in his life, gamble the lot. Yes, please, Mr Croupier, I’ll put it all on red, the limousines, the yacht and the house in Colorado …

  He took a deep breath and then exhaled. They’d reached the restaurant. The abrupt change in atmosphere brought his temperature back down to a simmer for a few moments.

  ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Jem, ‘what a place!’

  Dozens of unsmiling waiters in skinny black trousers ran nimbly through a vast sea of tables, holding aloft huge silver platters filled with red, green, brown and creamy pink curries, and cushiony white naan breads like miniature moonscapes. Hundreds of loudly conversing diners sat framed by colonial murals in mint green and ice blue, between towering wrought-iron palm trees and under six-foot ceiling fans spinning desperately to keep the intense heat down.

  A frenetic waiter showed them to their table, threw a pair of menus at them and disappeared without a smile.

  ‘It’s not the friendliest place in the world,’ whispered Ralph, ‘but just take a look at the prices.’

  They discussed the menu, decided on their order, and within less than a second of them closing their menus the same wiry waiter was back, gruffly taking their order and disappearing quickly again. Their Cobra beers arrived in thirty seconds.

  ‘Fast turnover,’ Ralph laughed, suddenly realizing that he’d chosen a bad venue for a heart-to-heart – if you took longer than fifteen minutes in this place they sent waiting customers to hover over your table.

  ‘Well,’ said Jem, smiling up at Ralph over the top of her beer glass, ‘this is very nice, isn’t it?’

  Ralph was slightly taken aback. He’d forgotten that this was very nice. He’d just been thinking of it as purgatory.

  ‘Yes,’ he said happily, ‘I suppose it is – very nice indeed.’

  ‘Um’ – Jem looked away from Ralph and then back towards him – ‘what’s it … what’s it in honour of?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘It’s just that – I hope you won’t take this the wrong way – I kind of had the feeling, when you phoned this morning, to ask me about tonight, that you were … asking me out?’

  ‘Really! What made you think that?’ Ralph choked on his Cobra.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. You just sounded sort of nervous and the conversation was a bit stilted. It just … reminded me of being asked out on a date. That’s all,’ she finished, waiting for a response.

  The small talk was over.

  ‘So’ – Ralph rubbed his chin – ‘let’s get this straight. I phoned you, entirely innocently–bored, nothing better to do than phone boring old Jemima Catterick – invited you out for a curry, purely, of course, so I wouldn’t have to sit here on my own, and you thought I was asking you out on a date. The cheek of it!’

  ‘Oh, stop it!
’ laughed Jem.

  ‘And then,’ Ralph was getting into his stride now, ‘and then, having quite unbelievably mistakenly thought that I’d asked you out on a date, which is, of course, ridiculous, instead of saying “But, oh, Master Ralph Sir, I couldn’t possibly, my heart belongs to another, you are a scoundrel and a cad,” proceeded to accept what you had so brazenly misinterpreted as an invitation of an amorous nature and are here now, sitting at this table with me, unescorted!! What am I to make of this?’

  ‘Oh, Ralph, you old git!’ Jem was blushing furiously.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ralph laughed. ‘Your face. It’s a picture. You look so sweet.’ He looked down at his large, long-fingered hands, now covering Jem’s tiny white ones, and felt a glow in his stomach. They looked so right together, those hands. He wanted to see them together for the rest of his life. He caressed the side of Jem’s hand with his thumb. She made no attempt to move it. ‘Such tiny hands,’ he murmured. He squeezed them and looked at Jem, giving her a slightly cheesy smile because it was all he could manage, and then down at their hands again. ‘You were right.’ He glanced at her shyly through his eyelashes. ‘I was asking you out on a date earlier. It’s true.’ He smiled again and gave her a ‘Caught me’ look with raised eyebrows. ‘I … we had such a great time at the weekend – it was … it was one of the best weekends of my life – honestly. And I wanted to see you again – away from the flat and from Smith and everything. I just … I just love being with you, Jem, I really do, and …’ He gulped and looked quickly up at Jem, who was watching him with an expression of anticipation and warmth. He sat up straight and looked her in the eye. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he finished, looking away again.

  ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ replied Jem. ‘I’ve told you before, I love being with you, too. I know I’ve only known you for three months, but I already think of you as one of my best friends.’

  ‘Oh, God, Jem, that’s sweet. But it’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about love. Real love. Not palsy-palsy love, not matey love. I really, really love being with you. I …’ He faltered for a moment and felt a tingly sweat begin to break out on his brow as the floodgates opened. ‘Oh, God, Jem. I love you. I’ve never said that to anyone before. But I mean it. I’m mad about you. I think you’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever met. I think about you all the time and I can’t pretend I don’t feel this way any more. I’m jealous as hell of Smith for having you. I never really thought about love before, about the right woman, about settling down with one person. And then you moved in and at first … at first I didn’t realize how special you were – you were just a flatmate I didn’t really want. And then I got to know you, got used to having you around, and gradually started liking you more and more. And then one night I knew – the night we had the chilli challenge. I suddenly knew, without a doubt, that I was in love with you. Jem, we were destined to be together. We’re right for each other. We fit. We would be the most special couple in the world, you know – magic, it’s magic when we’re together, haven’t you noticed? I can’t just be friends with you any more, Jem, d’you understand? I don’t want you to like me as a friend. I want you to feel the same way about me as I do about you, and there are times … sometimes, when I think you already do.’ He breathed out, a long, cool wonderful breath, full of relief and elation. He felt about ten stone lighter, the weight of the feelings and emotions he’d been hauling around with him for the last two months finally lifted from his soul.