Blue Collar

by Danny King

  ‘But do you get on with them? Do you love them?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you tell them that you love them?’

  ‘Well, yeah, you know, I don’t know, I mean, we don’t go around bawling our eyes out in front of each other and plastering the old man with kisses whenever he’s off the bog, but we do all right. Same as everyone else, I suppose,’ I babbled, a touch off balance in the face of such questions. ‘Well, what about you? What are you like with your old folks, then?’ I countered, figuring attack was the best form of defence.

  ‘My mum’s cool. I speak to her most days and tell her about my life.’

  ‘Have you told her about me?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said, saying all there was to say on that particular subject. ‘And my dad’s lovely, though he worries about me constantly. I guess being his only daughter and all that. I’m Daddy’s little girl and always will be to him. He’s very protective of me.’

  ‘Is he here now?’

  Charley laughed and told me he was waiting outside in the car with a cricket bat.

  ‘What does he do for a living?’

  ‘He’s an investment banker.’

  I didn’t really know what an investment banker did but it sounded like one of those bowler-hatted sorts of jobs that got you enough money to buy a house in Berkshire, cover it with ivy and park a Mercedes outside it.

  ‘Do all his pens come with little those chains on the end to keep ’em attached to the desk?’ was about the only thing I could think to ask about investment banking.

  ‘Yes. It stops representatives from the CBI sticking them in their pockets when he’s not looking,’ Charley confirmed.

  ‘Smart.’

  We talked for a few more pints, interspersing fact with nonsense as we got to know each other inch by inch and I learned a couple of things about Charley that both surprised me and watered down my optimism all in one.

  For a start, she was minted. Not super-rich, shopping at Harrods and a big plate of caviar and chips at the Ritz every night, but she still had a few quid in the bank all the same. See, while it turned out that thinking up ways to sell Rocket Man Sauce paid twice as much as it did to build houses, she also didn’t have half the outgoings I did as her flat was completely paid off – though not by her.

  ‘My dad bought it for me when I moved to London. Like I said, he worries about me and didn’t want me having to live in a dodgy area just because I couldn’t afford to buy a place somewhere nice.’

  All the same, that called for a ‘Jesus!’ if only because I wasn’t even a fifth of the way into my twenty-five-year mortgage to buy my ex-council flat in Catford, which probably qualified as Dodge City in Charley’s old man’s books.

  ‘It’s a bit embarrassing really,’ she sheepishly admitted.

  I thought about this before concluding that it shouldn’t be.

  ‘We’d all have one if we could,’ I said. ‘If he’s got the money and doesn’t mind parting with it, then why not? Better than chucking it at the bank if you don’t have to. Oh, I forgot, he works for the bank, doesn’t he? Well then, even better.’

  And I meant it too. We pay out so much money that we don’t have to when we’re skint. Take my place, for example; I bought it for just over ninety thousand pounds with a ninety-five per cent mortgage five years ago and if I stay alive, healthy and in work, by the time I finish paying it off in the year 2027, I will have paid back something in the region of a hundred and eighty grand for it. That’s over twice what the flat cost. I’ve checked the mortgage paperwork and it’s all there in black and white. Unbelievable, isn’t it? The thieving bastards. Your house is the most expensive thing you’ll ever have to buy and you have to pay double for it if you don’t have the wherewithal to buy it outright the first time around.

  Naturally, Charley’s old man, being a thieving bastard himself, probably worked all this out with one of his chain-linked pens and saw that plundering his ISAs for his daughter was actually the best way of keeping money in the family anyway. OK, so Charley now had his… whatever her flat cost – a quarter-of-a-million, I wouldn’t be surprised – but wasn’t she always going to get it anyway? The moment he popped his clogs the lot would’ve been turned over to her anyway. Charley was his only daughter, so what difference did it make if she got an advance on her inheritance and put it to good use while he was still around to enjoy seeing her put it to good use? And actually that’s not true either, come to think of it, Charley wouldn’t have got the lot because the taxman, an even bigger thieving bastard than Charley’s dad, would’ve had half of it away in death duties before she could’ve even stuck a black dress on, so if you think about it, it actually made a lot of financial sense just to give it to her now. If her flat had cost a quarter of a million pounds and if she had done the normal thing and got a mortgage and then waited for her dad to fall off his perch in order to get her hands on his money, she would’ve had to have paid out something like three hundred and seventy five grand to the bank and the taxman alternately to be no better off than she was as things stood right now.

  Put like that, who could blame her for letting her dad buy her a flat?

  Still, spoilt cow.

  ‘So your wages, what do you do with them, then? Just chuck ’em in the bank and dip into them when you want a new pair of socks, or do you blow the lot on taxis and holidays?’ I pried, quite improperly, but the question was crying out to be asked.

  ‘No, I have bills to pay, just like everybody else,’ she assured me, though she must’ve had radiators in the front garden and an extension lead running up to Blackpool’s Golden Mile to have made a dent in her fifty-grand-a-year salary, as far as I could make out. ‘And I have a few investments and a pension to manage,’ she added, and I was almost tempted to ask if she wanted me to have a whip-round, but I wasn’t sure she’d see the funny side of that if she was already embarrassed about having been given a flat – in pricey Canonbury.

  The second thing I learned about Charley that put a crimp in my expectations was that she’d had surprisingly few long-term relationships. She’d had the odd month-long fling here and there, of course, and a boyfriend while she’d been at university, but for most of the last couple of years she’d used a basket when she’d gone to the supermarket instead of a trolley and spent her Saturday mornings reading her Guardian rather than lying in his arms. She was, for want of a better expression, on the shelf, which was a lovely old expression that my dad used to use about my sister before she met Cliff whenever he wanted to hear her scream. The question was, though, why was Charley on the shelf?

  Did she choose to go it alone or were her expectations so phenomenally high that Romeo himself would’ve had a job getting her to come along on his plus-one invitations?

  In which case, what the hell was I doing shopping on these shelves? I couldn’t afford any of this stuff. Of course I couldn’t. And sooner or later the store detective was going to rumble me for the undesirable I was.

  ‘Penny for them,’ she said, when she saw me all pensive. I should’ve held out for more as I knew she could afford it but I went ahead and took her money anyway.

  ‘Just wondering what a nice girl like you…’ I started, before she comically interrupted.

  ‘…is doing in a place like this?’ she suggested, though she would’ve been closer to the mark if she’d tacked on the words ‘with a bozo like you’.

  ‘No, I mean, why you’re not seeing anyone? Why you haven’t got anyone? I mean, you’re great. You’re pretty, funny, clever, nice company. I can’t figure it out.’ (I could’ve also added ‘and fucking loaded’ but didn’t.)

  ‘I don’t know,’ Charley mused. ‘Maybe it’s because I’m a lesbian.’

  ‘See, you’ve even got that going for you too,’ I said, ticking the last box on my own particular card and calling bingo.

  ‘I could ask you the same,’ Charley pointed out.

  ‘Well, I ain’t gay, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  ‘What happ
ened to Jo? Your last girlfriend. Why did you split up with her?’

  That caught me a little offguard. I’d forgotten Charley knew about Jo and I didn’t feel particularly comfortable talking about old girlfriends with her. Still, the question had been asked so I told her the truth.

  ‘She did something that I didn’t like. Something I could never forgive her for.’

  ‘What?’ Charley asked, suddenly all ears.

  ‘She moved all of her stuff out of my place and married the manager of my local Safeways,’ I told her. ‘Of course, it’s Morrisons these days, they took it over, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with the story.’

  Charley gasped. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Yeah, they’ve changed the signs and everything.’

  ‘No, I mean about Jo? She left you and married someone else?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I admitted and shrugged. Well, what else was there to do?

  ‘I’m sorry, Terry,’ Charley frowned. ‘Were you very upset?’

  ‘Not really. It had been on the cards for some time in all honesty. We weren’t really getting on and sometimes you can just tell when a relationship’s run its course.’ I sighed.

  Charley reached across the table and laid her hand on mine.

  ‘One thing did annoy me, though,’ I then confessed.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I can’t go to bloody Morrisons any more. I’ve got to drive another mile up the road to Sainsbury’s and they don’t do the same spicy poppadoms I like.’

  ‘I feel your pain,’ Charley sympathised, and for one brief moment I almost forgot that I didn’t have a hope in hell of hanging on to the girl who was smiling warmly at me from across the table.

  Almost.

  7 Idol hands

  At eleven o’clock Charley started looking at her watch and fidgeting. I sensed our evening was coming to an end and wondered what happened now. Should I try my luck and suggest a nightcap back at hers or should I do my usual stupid gentlemanly bit, kiss her hand, take a manly bow and get a large doner kebab for the train ride home?

  ‘Well, I’ve had a really lovely evening,’ Charley said, giving me a look that filled my mouth with the taste of onions and chilli sauce. ‘But I guess we should be going. We don’t want to end up like last week.’

  What, in bed together? I wondered.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, looking about for puddles to lay my coat across. ‘Well, I’ve had a really nice night too. Perhaps we could go out again another night, maybe in the week again?’

  ‘Yeah. Or maybe we could go back to my place now,’ she suggested.

  ‘Yeah, or maybe we could do that,’ I agreed, and followed her out of the pub in a semi-daze.

  ‘I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me,’ she said, when we got outside. ‘I’m really not in the habit of doing this sort of thing.’

  Funnily enough, neither was I, which was why it was so fantastic that it was happening now. As for getting the wrong idea about Charley, I wasn’t sure I’d had a right one yet, so I was more than happy to give my brain the rest of the night off and let my heart take things from here – with back-up provided by the lads downstairs.

  ‘That’s OK, I don’t think anything of you, I promise,’ I duly promised, wondering if that had come out right.

  ‘You’re a fast worker. Most guys save that line for the next morning,’ Charley pointed out.

  ‘Er, no, that’s not what I mean,’ I fumbled, but Charley assured me it was OK, she knew what I meant.

  ‘So you’ll respect me in the morning, huh?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll worship you in the morning,’ I replied, causing my brain to leap out of bed and come charging downstairs in his slippers to see just who the fuck was letting my feet have a go on my mouth.

  ‘From thinking nothing of me to worshipping me? You really are a fast worker.’ Charley smiled, holding my gaze for a moment before slipping an arm around my waist and giving me a kiss.

  Charley had a nice kiss. Her lips touched mine. They parted a little and we tasted each other’s mouths with tenderness and restraint. Not like some of the birds I’ve known. After a few glasses of wine Jo used to kiss like that thing John Hurt got stuck to his face in Alien, while Helen before her used to attack my mouth like her tongue was trying to defect from her own head and make it over to mine to start a new life. Still, neither of them were as bad as Jill the Goth. I only ever went home with Jill once. Once was enough. She’d been OK in the pub and in the cab home, but then when we’d got back to her place she sank her teeth into my tongue during our first smooch and held me fast, as I hollered, howled and tried to gouge her eyes out.

  I honestly thought she was going to bite my tongue off and scrambled across the room and away from her when she finally let me go, checking my mouth for blood and the windows for bars.

  ‘Pain is good,’ she simply smirked.

  My lips, mouth and tongue didn’t go anywhere near any part of Jill again and after a quick glass of water I made my excuses (namely, ‘You’re fucking bananas and I’m out of here’) and ran off into the night. I couldn’t even get anything to eat on the way home as my tongue hurt so much and it spent the rest of the weekend bathing itself in ice creams and quivering behind my teeth whenever strange women looked my way.

  ‘You’ve got a nice kiss,’ I told Charley when we pulled back from each other.

  ‘Thanks. I should have, I’ve been practising on my hand all afternoon.’

  Which again made two of us.

  Charley twisted the keys in the lock and I followed her inside.

  Her place looked a little different from how I’d remembered it. I think I’d over-romanticized it in my head, like I have a tendency to do with all things, adding a couple of storeys here and dimmer switches there. It was still nice, certainly a lot nicer than my place, but it could’ve been nicer still. It had a lot of potential; a bit of decent skirting board, get rid of that cracked architrave, new tiles in the kitchen, lino in the bathroom, brass fixtures (which were my own personal favourites) instead of the basic plastic ones the builders had put in and new paint, carpet and doors throughout and Charley could’ve stuck ten grand on the price just like that.

  ‘It’s like having my very own Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen,’ Charley said, handing me a glass of brandy. ‘You know, the guy off Changing Rooms?’

  I remembered the show if not the guy’s name who’d presented it, but disagreed with Charley’s assessment. I wasn’t so much Llewelyn-Bowen, more one of those blokes in the background with no lines who did all work when the cameras were off and who silently longed to knock a bucket of bricks on to Laurence’s foppy head whenever he walked past.

  ‘Still, it could use a builder’s touch,’ Charley said, then took a sip of her drink and added: ‘I think we both could.’

  I realised she was right and put away my measuring tape and embraced her passionately.

  ‘Please be gentle with me,’ I said, sweeping her up in my arms, then putting her straight back down again when she turned out to be heavier than she looked. Size ten, my arse!

  We entwined right there on the sofa and started pinging buttons and pulling zips until we were in such a tangle that we had to momentarily disengage to shake our trousers off. When we did, I found that Charley had on matching lacy purple underwear that looked more expensive than my car and I realised it’d probably had more say in me being here than I had.

  ‘Let’s do it right here on the sofa,’ Charley whispered.

  ‘For starters,’ I replied, wrestling with her bra strap until admitting defeat and asking for a favour. Charley’s fingers tweaked her strap and her bra fell away to reveal a beautiful pair of Charleys. ‘Very nice,’ I either thought or said, I can’t remember which, and a moment later her knickers joined her bra and some more of my socks on the floor.

  Being the self-styled gentleman I am, I’ll leave the descriptions at the bedroom door, if you don’t mind too much, even though I was doing her in the liv
ing room. I’ve probably said a bit too much already in all honesty, telling you what colour her pants were and how many tits she had, so I won’t go on any further. All I’ll say is that she was soft, lithe, delicious and she didn’t try and bite my fucking tongue off.

  And you can’t ask for much more than that.

  We lay curled up on the sofa afterwards, kissing gently and tracing our fingers across each other’s bodies as we stared deeply into each other’s eyes. Mine suddenly felt as heavy as concrete blocks but I pulled out all the stops to keep them open for as long as possible in an effort to soak up every square mile of this pink and perfect vision of loveliness while it lasted.

  ‘How long has it been for you?’ Charley asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Since you last did that,’ she said, clearing up the mystery of whether we’d done it the previous week once and for all. Well, that or the reason she hadn’t replied to the previous evening’s text.

  ‘A little while,’ I told her, reluctant to go into specifics.

  ‘How long’s a little while?’ she pried.

  ‘A little while’s a little while,’ I sidestepped.

  ‘More than two weeks?’ she asked, almost making me laugh in her face.

  More than two weeks? Of course it was more than two weeks.

  Christ, I was going to be telling my mates I’d just done it with a stunningly beautiful bird four months from now so a fortnight of abstinence didn’t actually qualify as abstinence. It qualified as ‘I’m sorry, I can’t come to the phone as I’m doing it right this very minute’.

  ‘More than a few weeks,’ I finally replied, though I could’ve elaborated and told her she could’ve bundled those weeks up into months if she liked and there’d still be quite a few of them too.

  ‘How many’s a few?’ Charley pressed.

  ‘A few’s a few,’ I explained, before trying to baffle her with some nonsense. ‘When Winston Churchill said we owed “so much to so few”, he was talking about five or six hundred RAF pilots, but when my granny told me that she still had “a few good years” left in her yet, she was talking about anything between six months to three years, so it depends on the context.’