by Danny King
I still hadn’t heard from her, of course. I hadn’t even got a text, which either confirmed everything I’d feared or told me she’d finally worn down her thumbs to nubs sending smiley faces to her mates.
So I had a shave, ironed a shirt and ran a comb through my hair, but these things did little to shevel my dishevelledness. My mobile finally found its voice just after seven but it was only Jason phoning to see if I was still in the mood for a drink. Now there was an understatement and a half. Yes, King Kong was a bit big for a gorilla, wasn’t he?
I strolled up the road to the Lamb and found an empty bar stool right where I’d left one the previous evening.
‘Evening, Tel,’ Tony nodded when I took my seat. ‘Lager?’
‘Evening, Tony. And you, Stan. Yes please, mate.’
Tony poured two pints and set them both down on the bar towel in front of me.
‘Cheers,’ I said, picking up one and emptying the top three inches into my face.
Jason appeared less than two minutes later and embraced the waiting pint like a long-lost friend.
‘Evening, Jason,’ Tony nodded.
‘Evening, Tony. Stan,’ Jason replied when he resurfaced. ‘Cheers.’
Yeah, we were a couple of Friday night fixtures all right. We didn’t even have to ask for two pints these days, we just got a second automatically the moment we walked in to toast the start of the weekend, as Tony knew the other would never be far behind. You would’ve thought this might’ve caused a few problems whenever either of us were on our holidays and it probably would’ve if we didn’t always go away on holiday together. Me, Jason, Sandra and whoever I was seeing at the time. We’d always go as a foursome. This year we’d be going away as a three.
Neither Jason nor Sandra knew this yet, though, so I decided to keep it that way for the time being. Finishing things with Charley was going to be hard enough without a load of uninformed and ill-thought-through advice to cloud my judgement. I knew what had to be done. And that was enough for now. There’d be plenty of time to pick the bananas out of this particular bucket of pilchards after I’d done the necessary.
‘I had your mate CT bending my ear all afternoon today, you know,’ Jason told me in between gulps. ‘On camera and all. Can’t that bloke do anything without pointing a camera at it? What’s he like going to the pictures with, that’s what I want to know.’
‘Don’t know. Why don’t you ask him? I’m sure he’d go with you.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure he would,’ Jason smirked knowingly, prompting Tony (who was earwigging near by as ever) to ask if this CT was some sort of big movie fan, then. We decided to spare ourselves the inevitable gay teapot impressions that would’ve accompanied the truth and simply confirmed that this CT was indeed some sort of big movie fan.
‘I like a good movie myself, I do,’ Tony told us, sensing an in. ‘Platoon, that was a good one. And Saving Private Ryan, d’you see that one?’
I had. Jason hadn’t.
‘A Bridge Too Far, that was another good one,’ Tony continued. ‘The Great Escape. Full Metal Jacket. Hamburger Hill. The Dirty Dozen. Kelly’s Heroes. Er…’
‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?’ Jason suggested.
‘Nah, don’t think I saw that one,’ Tony reckoned, scratching his head.
‘Really?’ Jason replied.
Tony was unfortunately called away to pour a few pints so we never got the chance to ask him which (if he absolutely had to choose) was his favourite Meryl Streep movie. Instead, we returned to the question of CT.
‘So what exactly was he bending your ear about?’ I asked.
‘And you can cut out this “your mate” bit an’ all, all right?’
‘He was bending my ear about you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah, he wanted to know what you’d been saying about Charley.’
‘He what?’ I replied, stunned that CT should be trying to make a public spectacle out of my private feelings. ‘Hang on a minute, on camera? He wanted to know what I’d been saying about Charley – on camera?’
‘I swear to God, man. It’s outrageous, I know.’
Outrageous wasn’t the word. I could hardly believe it. It was one thing to stick your oar into someone else’s puddle on the quiet side, but quite another to go around trying to tape the whole thing. That was taking stirring to an all-new level and it was bang out of order. Plain and simple. My only guess was that CT had been hoping to lull Jason into dishing the dirt on me under the guise that it had something to do with the programme, so that he could then show it to Charley so that she’d then have a reason to justify dumping me. Or something like that.
Jesus, my head hurt.
‘And what did you tell him?’ I asked.
‘I told him to hop it and mind his own fucking business. What d’you think I was going to tell him?’ Jason replied.
‘That’s not on,’ I fumed, feeling even more wronged than usual. ‘Going behind my back like that.’
‘He’s been doing it all month, mate,’ Jason then told me. ‘Has he?’
‘Straight up. I never really put two and two together up until now but…’ he started, until Tony cut in to ask Jason if he wanted to borrow a calculator.
‘Here, Tony, do us a favour, will you?’ I pleaded with him, before turning back to Jason. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, he’d always just ask us about you. You know: “How’s Terry?” “How are you getting on?” “What’s new with you and Charley?” That sort of thing. I thought he was just being friendly because he’s mates with Charley and he knows you, so I always thought he was just making conversation, a bit of common ground and all that. But I’ll tell you, man, this afternoon! He smelt all wrong.’
‘In what way?’ I pressed, noticing that even old Stan was all ears.
‘Well, I don’t know, he just did. Went beyond the usual “good morning” and “how’s Terry?” malarkey. Especially with you having the arsehole all week. I just thought he smelt like a nosey cunt, so I told him to sling his hook and go and film some bricks somewhere else. Big John told him the same.’
‘He was asking Big John about me an’ all?’
‘Tel, he’s been asking everyone. For weeks. Like I say, I just figured it was ’cos he knew you. You know, like whenever I get invited to any weddings on Sandra’s side, I don’t know anyone usually so I just spend the whole night asking everyone how they know the bride until it’s time to go home or I’m too drunk to care.
It’s just what you do when you don’t know anyone else, innit? But no, I think there’s more to it than that with your mate CT, like he’s trying to stir it or something, and it really showed this week,’ Jason said, downing the last of his pint and shouting two and a half more in for me, him and old Stan.
Any lingering doubts I might’ve had about me and Charley were now well and truly shot. I couldn’t believe I’d been so daft as to think things could’ve actually worked out between us, love will conquer all and that load of old kippers, but that twain really was some leap, wasn’t it? And as if I needed any further proof, here was one of Charley’s best mates going around behind my back, trying to get the nuts and bolts on the whole mess so that they’d all have something to giggle about at their next dinner party. That really put the henna tattoo on it.
‘So what’s his game, then?’ Jason asked. ‘What’s he after? Haven’t you and Charley kissed and made up yet?’
‘No, we haven’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘It ain’t as simple as that.’
‘Why ain’t it? What’s up?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘No, nothing.’
Jason paused to consider this for a second.
‘When are you seeing her next?’
‘Who says I am?’
Jason raised an eyebrow, then nodded like he finally understood.
‘Oh, sorry, mate. Given you the elbow, has she?’ he puckered, ruefully.
‘No she fuck
ing hasn’t! And what makes you think she’d be the one giving me the elbow if elbowing time came around anyway?’ I demanded. ‘She ain’t exactly queen of the desert either, you know.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Jason uh-huhhed.
‘You know, I’m fed up with everyone thinking I’m playing second fiddle to her. Some rich bird born with a silver spoon up her arse and I should be the one who’s grateful for the zucchini gratings that fall from her table!’ I brooded.
‘What’s zucchini?’
‘It’s like a courgette.’
Jason responded with a blank look.
‘You know, a courgette? Like in cooking.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, look, it’s like a cucumber only for cooking with.’
‘You cook with cucumbers?’
‘No, you cook with fucking zucchinis!’ I snapped, rapidly losing my patience. ‘You only cook with cucumbers if you don’t know what a zucchini or a courgette is and you’re just looking at the fucking pictures in your cookery book.’
‘You’ve got cookery books? When d’you get those?’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’
I rubbed my face and took a big wallop of my pint to signal my increasing frustration before getting back to my original line of martyrdom.
‘I’m talking about Charley here.’
‘What about her?’
‘Well, I’m just saying, I’m the man, ain’t I?’
‘It’s a tight one but I’d just about give you the decision, yeah,’ Jason conceded.
‘Well, I should be the one calling the shots, then, not the one who’s running around after her all the time.’
‘Is that what you want?’ Jason asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not. But you know what I mean, don’t you? It’s just bollocks, this is. It’s just bollocks.’
‘Things going all right, then, are they?’
I didn’t even deign that with an uppercut.
‘Anyway, who says you’re playing second fiddle to Charley? Is that what CT and the rest of her mates say, then?’ Jason then asked.
‘It ain’t what they say, it’s what they think,’ I told him.
‘Hang on a minute, you can read minds? You never told me about this. That’s amazing. Here, do me. What am I thinking now?’
‘I don’t know, something about Saturday night, you and CT in the back row of the pictures with a couple of zucchinis, is all I’m getting,’ I replied.
‘Tel, look, mate, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Charley and it’s none of my business, but if she ain’t making you happy then you’ve got to ask yourself if it’s worth it,’ Jason advised from the safety of his long and happy marriage. ‘I mean, you and Charley ain’t exactly been making out like Romeo and Juliet for some while now, have you?’
‘Well, neither have you or Sandra,’ I pointed out. ‘Phhp, of course not, we’ve been together almost fourteen years. We’ve earnt the right to drop all that bollocks, but I bet old Romeo wasn’t sitting around after only six months cunting Juliet off to his mates because she kept trying to get him to eat cucumbers,’ he said.
‘Maybe not, but then they were all right back in the old days, weren’t they, just riding around, picking flowers and living happily ever after. It’s not like that these days, mate,’ I objected.
‘You ain’t read Romeo and Juliet, have you?’ Jason commented.
‘I ain’t seen it either. And neither’s Tony, I’ll bet, so what’s your point?’ I asked.
‘Tel, I just think you got off on the wrong foot with this relationship and you’ve been off balance ever since,’ Jason said. ‘You know, most people meet, they shag, they go back for seconds and they end up thinking “hello, I quite like this person, perhaps I’ll stick around for a little longer”, but not you. You’ve been walking around like you’ve got the Mona Lisa under your arm from day one. How are you meant to relax and be yourself when you’re constantly expecting a tap on the shoulder?’
‘What’s all this got to do with CT?’ I asked, suddenly wondering where the start of this conversation had disappeared to.
‘All I’m saying is you reap what you sow,’ Jason explained. ‘So perhaps they are all laughing at you behind your back. I don’t know if they are. They might be. Then again they might not be, but if they are, it’s because you’ve shown ’em the way. It ain’t just dogs who can smell fear, you know,’ which was Jason’s final piece of advice before Tony successfully wrestled the conversation away from my personal inadequacies and on to his own with discussion about the complete works of Steven Seagal.
It ain’t just dogs who can smell fear? Hmm.
Well, it ain’t just dogs who have teeth either. I’d show ’em.
24 Getting my retaliation in first
I still didn’t want to call Charley, as I was worried she’d bin me before I could get a word out edgeways, so I texted her instead, figuring six months of time served would hopefully protect me against any ‘Hi T, lng time no :-0… Soz but thngs nt workn. Thnk we shud jst b :-) bye Cx’ type replies.
I took the initiative for once and picked a place to meet. And it wasn’t the Workers’ Social either. I suggested we met at St Paul’s. As in the cathedral.
I hadn’t been struck down with religion or anything and I wasn’t trying to make any symbolic points, I just wanted our meeting to be on my terms. And every time I’d suggested a place to Charley in the past, she’d always trumped me with somewhere better, which had generally put me on the back foot from the off.
‘Fancy a drink in town this evening? I know a pub in Trafalgar Square that’s never that busy.’
Better still, there’s a great little bar just off Haymarket that serves cocktails in teapots and has bowls of goldfish on every table.
‘Er, yeah, OK. Then afterwards, if we’re hungry, maybe I can treat you to an Indian if you fancy it?’
We could do, but have you ever tried Iraqi?
Well, just let her try and come up with a flasher church than St Paul’s Cathedral. I couldn’t think of anywhere.
Also, and rather more importantly, I needed Charley to actually show up and I wasn’t entirely sure she would if I simply suggested some neutral pub, restaurant or park bench somewhere after a week of radio silence. Charley might’ve smelt a rat and taken the opportunity to leave me stewing in my own pilchards as one final ‘fuck you very much’ before disappearing from my life completely. And I wanted to have my say. Face to face. I owed that much to myself.
So St Paul’s Cathedral was my ace. Impressive, neutral and intriguing enough to entice her along.
I arrived a little before midday and walked around to the main entrance. One side of the building had scaffolding going up to the first roof, so I stopped for a moment and tried to picture what this place had looked like three-hundred-odd years ago when it had been rebuilt after the Great Fire. It probably wouldn’t have looked too unlike some of the big building projects I’d worked on in the past. I’d done a few offices, a couple of supermarkets and even a prison out in Kent in the past, so I reckon I could’ve found my way around this site without too many problems. I reckon I could’ve probably even got a job if I’d showed up with my own tools and the boss had been hiring. Things hadn’t changed that much in three hundred years. Technology, materials and designs had perhaps, but the actual work itself had always been done by blokes like me. It might’ve been Sir Christopher Wren’s name on the big marble tablet on the wall inside but I didn’t have a doubt in my boots that it was being kept company by a couple of hundred less obvious engravings that probably hadn’t seen the light of day in three-hundred-odd years. And I was sure these names warmly greeted a dozen or so new arrivals every time a fresh set of scaffolding went up to steam-clean the masonry, repoint the lead or install the dean’s new Sky+ dish.
I walked around and through a big set of revolving doors, bought two tickets for admission and left Charley’s with the woman behind the desk, before heading for the Whispering Gallery.
Another whisper, according to the tour guide I passed on the stairs, was ‘will you marry me?’ Lots of people proposed to their other halves in the Whispering Gallery. Hats off, I guess it’s quite a romantic thing to tickle your girlfriend’s ear with.
I wondered how many had used the place to dump theirs.
Now, I wasn’t going to be such an arsehole as to whisper it into the wall to her or string tin cans across the gallery or nothing. But likewise, I did quite like the sanctity of the place and felt it bullet proofed me against the sort of violent reaction that was as likely to be heard in the crypt downstairs as on the other side of the gallery.
Oh no you ain’t! You ain’t dumping me, because I’m dumping you first, you wanker!
That sort of thing.
Not that I expected her to flip out this way, but it was always a possibility. People do funny things when they’ve just been dumped.
I sent Charley a text to let her know where I’d be, then turned off my phone. And this wasn’t just to avoid getting a last minute SMS dump either. St Paul’s was a church. A house of God. Mobiles were strictly off limits. If visitors wanted to send messages from this place, it had to be done the old-fashioned way with their hands together and their knees bent.
I found a seat against a quiet wall of the Whispering Gallery and looked at my watch. It was now just after a quarter past twelve. I’d asked to meet her at half past and arrived early to get the lie of the land. I knew she’d be late. Probably a quarter of an hour, maybe even half, which normally would tear into my guts and fill my head with visions of being stood up, but I expected it now. I’d got used to it, so I was able to take a moment and prepare.