Talking to Addison

by Jenny Colgan

‘And that’s how you’re planning on getting Sophie into bed?’ asked Kate incredulously.

  ‘Don’t be disgusting.’

  ‘Josh, you know, bed is not necessarily disgusting,’ I said, refilling his wine glass. ‘It’s just been so long you can’t remember.’

  ‘I can’t believe you think that that might get a girl to come to a party with you.’ Kate was still amazed. ‘Why don’t you just ask her straight out if she’d like to come?’

  ‘Ehm, well … because she might think I’m just trying to get her into bed.’

  ‘But you are! You are, aren’t you? Please say yes.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. God, sometimes I think you lot would like to see me go and bugger Danny La Rue, but it’s not going to happen.’ He sighed. ‘I hope. God, I don’t know why it’s all so damn complicated. I just want to, you know, meet someone nice to hold hands with, and talk about things.’

  Kate and I stared at each other.

  ‘Are you completely smooth in front, like an Action Man?’ I asked him. He grimaced at me and went to fetch the rhubarb tart.

  ‘Just ask her to the party,’ said Kate. ‘Look at you. You’re cute. You’re blond. You’re posh. You’re practically clones of each other …’

  ‘Except you’re not up yourself,’ I added quickly, kicked myself under the table, then added: ‘and I’m sure she isn’t either.’

  ‘… why wouldn’t she come?’

  Josh looked at us mournfully, holding the tart between his Heal’s oven gloves.

  Kate sighed. ‘And yes, we will pretend that we are interested in the bar.’

  Josh grinned and plonked the tart down with a flourish.

  ‘Really, you won’t regret it. You’ll love her. Do you know, she stables her own ponies?’

  ‘We love her already,’ said Kate.

  ‘And oh!’ he said, as if he’d just remembered it. He got out of striking distance. ‘She’s a potential Conservative candidate.’

  I snuck some coq au vin into Addison’s room and didn’t bother to tell him Josh had cooked it, in case he was into chicks that did that kind of thing. He waved a hand at me without turning round, which I’d learned meant he was in the middle of composing a particularly fluent line of code and was uninterruptible. I liked to think of him like Mozart, enraptured by his muse, except at the end of Mozart writing something he got lots of nice twiddly noises, and I had no idea what spilled out the end of Addison’s frantic typing.

  I sat down on the floor and started playing with a doll shaped like Jean-Luc Picard while he finished. I also picked at his chicken. Eventually, he turned round.

  ‘How goes it?’ I asked him, handing him a knife and fork. Addison stared at the food for a bit, then launched into it as if he hadn’t eaten for a week, which would have surprised nobody.

  ‘Hnfu bad,’ he said, through a mouthful of pesto mash. ‘It’s boring really.’

  ‘Not to me,’ I said. I hoped he was designing something unbelievably hi-tech that would help disabled children and revolutionize the world.

  ‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘I programme C++ and edit AVID.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Would you mind not fiddling with that,’ he said, indicating the doll. ‘It’s limited edition.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, putting it down carefully. I forgive a lot in people whose eyelashes scratch their cheekbones.

  ‘So … have you decided who to invite to the singles party yet?’

  ‘Is that for real?’ sighed Addison, putting down his forkful of carrot julienne. ‘I hate parties.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Well,’ he said, twisting himself nervously, ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but … I’m actually quite shy.’

  I choked, and tried to turn it into a cough.

  ‘Really? No, actually, I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘Yeah … I don’t really like meeting people that much.’

  I nodded sagely. ‘Yes, I’m quite shy myself. In fact, you know, we could escape that night, go out somewhere else …’

  ‘I don’t really like going out much either,’ he said apologetically. ‘Do you think I’m weird?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. You know, really, it’s not that great out there in the whole … big, world thing. You’re not missing much.’

  He smiled with relief.

  ‘I’m really glad you moved in,’ he said. A flame lit up in my heart like a pilot light. I gave him my patented doe-eyed sincere look.

  ‘I’m glad too.’

  He smiled shyly. ‘Ehm, actually, there was someone I wanted to invite.’

  ‘Yes?’ I said coyly.

  ‘Come here,’ he said, and beckoned me over to his computer screen. I got up, trying not to trip over the extension wires in my excitement. He clicked his mouse on a corner icon and suddenly a face filled half the screen. A big, flat, potato-like face. With a moustache. On the other half was what appeared to be a continuing dialogue in two different colours of text.

  ‘This is Claudia,’ he said.

  I peered more closely at the pixels, just to confirm that it was, in fact, a woman and not the lumpy builder I’d originally taken it for.

  ‘Who’s Claudia?’ I asked petulantly.

  ‘Ehm … she’s kind of … like, my girlfriend,’ said Addison, blushing.

  I sat down heavily, then got up promptly when I realized I was sitting on the remnants of coq au vin.

  ‘Oh!’ I said, trying to make my voice sound not too hysterical. ‘I didn’t know you had a girlfriend! Where do you keep her? Under the bed? Ha ha!’

  ‘Well, we’ve never met.’

  ‘Ah, that famous imaginary girlfriend?’

  ‘No, she’s real all right,’ he said proudly. ‘I met her on the Internet.’

  Yes, well, I’d gathered that.

  ‘How do you know that’s her picture?’ I said, squinting at the troll-like image. ‘She could … you know, be really ugly or something.’

  Addison smiled. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But, even if that isn’t her … well, I wouldn’t care.’

  ‘As long as she’s a girl,’ I said. ‘And not twelve.’

  ‘No, there –’ he pointed to the picture again – ‘she’s holding up her driving licence.’

  She looked like the Rosemary West mug shot.

  ‘She looks nice,’ I said.

  ‘She is. She knows more about Star Trek than anyone I’ve ever met.’

  I started fiddling with the Jean-Luc Picard doll again.

  ‘That’s very romantic,’ I said. ‘So … are you going to invite her to the party?’

  ‘Well … she lives in Baltimore …’

  Hurrah!

  ‘… and she doesn’t much like leaving the house either … But, you know, I will ask her!’

  ‘What does she do?’ I stumbled on, torturing myself.

  ‘She does C+ + too,’ he said proudly. ‘She works on government defence programmes. She’s got security clearance and everything.’

  Wow. A fat agoraphobic bomb-maker four thousand miles away was doing better with Addison than I was.

  ‘If neither of you leaves the house, and you live on different continents,’ I mused, ‘do you think there’s a lot of future in the relationship?’

  Addison shrugged. ‘Well, you know, science can do a lot these days.’

  I struggled to work out what he was referring to, thought it might be sperm, decided it couldn’t be, realized it had to be, and nearly threw up.

  ‘I bet you wish they’d hurry up and invent the teleport, eh?’ I said.

  ‘Actually, it’s not worth the trouble to invent the technology to evaporate and replicate an individual,’ he said gravely. ‘You’re on much safer ground when you work at speeding up transportation as quickly as possible.’

  Snap! I suddenly realized that I’d pulled Jean-Luc Picard’s arm off. I held it behind my back.

  ‘So, this is serious, then?’

  He blinked at me, but I got distracted and yelled befo
re I’d had the chance to think about it: ‘Oh my God, the face is coming to life!!’

  At first Addison’s eyes darted to where my trembling finger was pointing like some harbinger of doom in an Edgar Allan Poe story, but he quickly relaxed.

  ‘Don’t worry – that’s just a little computer thing we do. When Claudia’s typing to me, her picture moves like it’s speaking.’

  And sure enough, Claudia was making like a ventriloquist’s doll while words were coming up on the screen. It was reminiscent of the Bride of Chucky.

  ‘What’s she saying?’

  Addison went coy.

  ‘Oh, just, “Hi, how’re you doing?” That kind of stuff.’

  I leaned over to the computer screen.

  ‘“I salute you, Captain?” Is that you?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Can I say hello?’

  ‘Ehm, best let me.’

  ‘Otherwise it’ll be coming out of your mouth on her end?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Actually, you know, Addison, I think maybe you are a bit weird.’

  My panic had somewhat abated. I was still pissed off, but hey, she was there and I was here, standing and talking to him – and he was about to tell her about me. She might even get jealous. Low tactics, certainly, but necessary ones.

  Addison started to type and I peered over his shoulder.

  ‘Hello there,’ he started. Seemingly unsure of how to proceed, he pressed return.

  ‘Rn’t I yr Uhuru tonight?’ shot back.

  ‘Addison!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘What?’ he said, embarrassed. ‘It’s like a pet name.’

  ‘What, a pet whore?’ I said, then wished I hadn’t. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ he typed back, ignoring me. ‘I’m here with a friend.’

  ‘???????????????’ came up.

  ‘Holly, my flatmate.’

  Ha, that’ll get you, I thought meanly.

  ‘IS THAT A GIRL’S NAME?’

  ‘I don’t know, is that a girl’s moustache?’ I said to myself.

  ‘Y.’

  ‘DOES SHE LIKE STAR TREK?’

  Addison looked at me and I nodded my head vehemently, still hanging on to the mutilated Jean-Luc.

  ‘Y.’

  ‘FAVOURITE CHARACTER?’

  Oh God, I didn’t care.

  ‘Scotty?’ I said hopefully to Addison, who dutifully typed it in.

  ‘FAVOURITE NEXT GENERATION CHARACTER?’

  Oh, I was in deep doo here.

  ‘Ehm … still Scotty, definitely.’

  ‘What, you mean from “Relics” where they step back in time and meet mirror images of themselves from the original crew?’

  ‘Yes, that one.’

  ‘Wow.’

  There was a long pause whilst we waited for Claudia’s answer. Finally, the strange mouth thing crept back to life.

  ‘IS SHE YR GIRLFRIEND?’

  Even I was surprised. Addison looked distraught.

  ‘Oh no. What should I do?’

  ‘Tell her, “no”?’ I suggested. ‘Point out the word “flatmate”. Oh, they don’t have that in America, do they? They call it “roommate”. Maybe she thinks “flatmate” means “lover”!?’

  He practically stumbled over the keys to type: ‘No, of course not! Don’t be silly!’

  Thanks a lot.

  ‘How could I possibly prefer anyone to you? Even if she does recognize Scotty’s performance in “Relics”.’

  I sighed and hid the Star Trek doll under a full-size Darth Vader head.

  ‘So, I’ll see you at the party, then,’ I said to Addison breezily.

  ‘Yes, OK then, I’ll see you at the party,’ was what he clearly meant to say. Unfortunately, the words didn’t come out of his mouth but were typed at high velocity on to the keyboard. Before he could think, he’d pressed ‘return’.

  He stared at me open-mouthed in horror at what he had done.

  ‘Addison, you’re a true cyborg,’ I said. ‘Did you get your navel removed and replaced with a three-way socket? Where’s your bar code tattoo?’

  ‘It’s not funny,’ he said. ‘I’m so much more used to typing than … She’ll think I’m making fun of her.’

  ‘Or she might come,’ I said, for him. The mouth on the screen was no longer gasping like a fish. He was studying it intently. He actually seemed slightly hopeful.

  ‘Well, if she doesn’t come, I’ll dance with you,’ I said. ‘Maybe they’ll play some Kraftwerk.’

  ‘I love them,’ he said, still staring angstily at the screen.

  ‘I knew that,’ I said. ‘Now, compose your letter of apology. In Klingon.’ He smiled, and I beat a retreat.

  I heard ‘Holly, have you seen my Jean-Luc Picard doll?’ being yelled after me, but I pretended not to.

  Chali wanted to know exactly what kind of music would be playing and what kinds of drugs would be available at the party before she even attempted to decide whether to consider acknowledging the invitation.

  ‘Snoopy Dogg Dogg? Vodka jelly?’

  She sneered at me, whilst sloppily tying up a princess bouquet – not the easiest of double acts to pull off. Mrs Bigelow had ‘just popped in’ to see how we were doing and Chali had accused her of spying, whereupon there’d been a bit of a yelling match, so she was now putting together the deliveries very, very slowly. I was supposed to be watching her and learning, but all I was learning was how I would put bouquets together if I were underwater. It was the week after I’d found out about Claudia. I was dealing with it, but slowly.

  ‘Is it going to be full of old folk?’

  I hadn’t considered asking my mother – she could get down and frug with the best of them. Parents at parties stopped when you were of snoggable age – or at least, stayed upstairs praying – and started up again when you got engaged, there to continue for the rest of your life, I assumed. I explained this.

  ‘No, I meant, lots of people, like, your age and that.’

  I hit her with one of the thorny twigs.

  ‘Mid twenties is NOT OLD.’

  ‘Mid twenties, my bum. You’re nearly thirty. And then, your life is over.’

  ‘My life will not be over. Anyway, I won’t be doing this when I’m thirty. Probably won’t even be in the country.’

  ‘Really? Why, what are you going to do?’

  I had no idea.

  ‘Oh, there’s lots of possibilities. Lots of things.’

  ‘Yeah, like climbing up on a shelf.’

  ‘Shut up. Actually, you can’t come to our party. It’s only for mature, elegant individuals.’

  ‘In smocks?’

  Chali had on skinny little bootleg trousers and something chiffony. Her black hair curled in a long thick plait down to her waist. I was wearing a smock.

  ‘Well, fine,’ I said. ‘If you want to miss out on all those City Porsche owners, that’s up to you.’ I hadn’t forgotten the ‘Gareth’ incident. ‘Or maybe you’d rather be going out with people who keep dogs on pieces of string.’

  She didn’t say anything for a bit. Then:

  ‘You don’t look like you’ve got lots of rich mates.’

  ‘Well, you don’t look like you jump up and down on the spot for ten hours a night and call it fun, but you do.’

  ‘Hnn. Who’s the DJ going to be then?’

  There was a bit of controversy about this in the flat. Josh obviously wanted to do it, but if we let him, he’d play Scritti Politti all night.

  ‘He’s called Fatboy Josh,’ I said. ‘He’s great. He’s got a real, ehm, vibe thing, etcetera.’

  Chali glanced at me suspiciously.

  ‘Can I bring a friend?’

  ‘You have to, that’s the rule of the party. You have to bring a single friend.’

  ‘All my mates are single.’

  ‘OK. You know, Chali, I KNOW you’re nineteen. It won’t last. Get over it.’

  ‘I wonder if I’ll get droopy upper arms when I’m old,
like you?’

  ‘Maybe you’ll die of a poisoned ecstasy tablet first,’ I said moodily.

  ‘What a way to go, though,’ she replied.

  ‘Are you coming or not?’

  ‘I suppose we can drop in on our way out for the evening. You’ll probably be finished about two, won’t you?’

  Two seemed to me an OK time to finish a party.

  ‘Well, we can go out properly after it. Flint!’

  I had no idea what flint meant, and I wasn’t about to demean myself by asking.

  ‘Flint!’ I said, cheerfully.

  Four hours before the party was officially supposed to begin, three of us sat tensely around the kitchen table. The house was immaculate, and Kate wouldn’t let any of us move, so we were just sitting and staring into space. We were also forbidden from opening any of the wine or touching any of the little nibbly things the caterers had dropped off, which was in itself a form of torture. There were flowers everywhere, as filched by me. Filching was not a problem; Chali took so much she’d get the blame anyway. And, morally, they were paying me just above minimum wage, so these were my contribution to the party. Kate and Josh had paid for everything else, hence the embargo on the mini pizzas. It felt a bit unfair to ask Addison for a contribution, given that a party was being imposed on his living space, but he had bought his own bolt for his door. I assumed it was for the party and not, e.g., to keep me out.

  It had been a really beautiful May day, which should have gotten everyone in a party mood, but as we’d been inside cleaning all day and filling the bath with ice for the beer before remembering that we were all hot and sweaty and needed a bath, we were a bit cranky.

  ‘OK,’ Josh was saying, ‘so, the champagne has been delivered.’

  ‘What exactly are we celebrating, again?’ asked Kate. ‘Our communal loneliness?’

  ‘We could have a competition,’ I added. ‘See who’s got the most frozen lasagne boxes in their bin.’

  ‘Once again,’ said Josh, quite heavily for him, ‘we are celebrating our youth and success and the beginning of summer.’

  ‘Through the medium of canapés.’

  ‘I wish we had a croquet lawn,’ Josh sighed.

  ‘We’ve got a fire escape,’ I pointed out. It was rusty to the point of extreme danger and if you fell off you would arrive in downstairs’ midden of a garden and be eaten by triffids, but it was outside, and it belonged to us.