Three's a Crowd

by Simon Booker

‘Doubt it. Unless you watch EastEnders.’

  ‘Are you in it now?’

  ‘No, I was the love interest for one of the regulars a couple of years ago. They gave me a character arc. Six weeks.’

  He was about to ask another question when one of the bobble hats told us it was our turn on the telescope.

  To be honest, five minutes was enough. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the rings and learning that Saturn is named after the Roman god of agriculture, but when it comes to freezing my arse off, a little goes a long way.

  Luckily, Tom felt the same, or maybe he was being polite, because it wasn’t long before he told me he’d booked a restaurant – two, in fact – and did I prefer sushi or Italian? When I picked option B, he phoned the Japanese place to cancel, so he’s A) organized and B) knows how to behave like a gent, unlike some fuck-trumpets I could mention.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  * * *

  The restaurant was full of Saturday night couples. Two well-groomed guys sat at the next table, negotiating the end of their relationship and arguing over which of them would get custody of the tropical fish. All very Hampstead.

  Tom said he’d grown up nearby (posh boy!) but now lives in Dalston, which is why he keeps coming into the café. His mum owned a minicab company but it went bust when Uber took over the world so she’s on a yoga sabbatical to ‘find herself’ in Goa. I said I loved yoga and had been meaning to go backpacking in India but never found the right travelling companion.

  ‘Why not go alone?’ said Tom.

  ‘Not my style.’

  ‘I’ve been loads of places on my own,’ he said. ‘America, Vietnam, Cambodia. I’m a bit of a loner.’

  ‘As in, “the shooter was a loner and loved his mum deeply”?’

  He smiled.

  ‘As in, I like doing stuff on my own.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘People say they like it because it sounds cool but they’re kidding themselves. An experience is only worth having if it’s shared.’

  ‘I must remember that.’

  I thought I’d pissed him off but he was still smiling. I’d almost forgotten the plaster on his nose. We talked families. His mum was a workaholic till she discovered yoga. His granddad, ‘Gorgeous’ George, sounded like what Nan would call a ladies’ man. As for his father, Tom hardly mentioned him, except to say their relationship was ‘tricky’. All through school and uni, nothing was good enough.

  ‘I’d get an A and he’d say, “What’s wrong with A-plus?” ’ A muscle tightened in his jaw. ‘Sometimes he’d hardly speak to me for months. Once, he ignored Mum for a whole year.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Complicated. Bipolar.’

  ‘Manic depression?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘That’s what they used to call it. Now it’s “bipolar disorder”. She’s fine till she forgets her meds. Then things get out of hand.’

  ‘Such as?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘She once turned up at sports day with, like, a hundred ice creams, one for every kid.’

  ‘I bet you were popular.’

  ‘Yes, till she stripped off and insisted on taking part in the egg and spoon race. She tried to convince everyone else to get naked, too. The teachers bundled her into the staff room and phoned Dad. I think she took an overdose that night – she went off in an ambulance – but they never talked about it… at least, not to me.’ He sighed. ‘There are tons of examples of her having an “episode” but Naked Sports Day is the one I remember best.’

  Understands mental health issues. Tick.

  ‘How come they’ve lasted?’ I said.

  He shrugged.

  ‘They live pretty separate lives. I’m not sure we were ever a family or just people under the same roof. Plus I think Dad probably…’ He tailed off, running a finger around the rim of his wine glass.

  ‘Probably what?’

  ‘Had affairs. They argued a lot when I was young.’

  ‘About other women?’

  A shrug.

  ‘I don’t know for sure, but he’s a good-looking dude and loves women so I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘My dad’s a pussycat,’ I said, then wished I hadn’t. It sounded like showing off. I stopped myself from telling him about the night Dad phoned Cockweasel and threatened to tell his wife about me unless he stopped texting and left me the fuck alone. Long story short, I calmed Dad down. No sense making a bad situation worse, IMHO, and the less Wifey knew the better. Not that I’m trying to keep the door open or anything.

  All in all, it was a nice evening – just what I needed. I offered to pay my way, obvs, but Tom wouldn’t hear of it.

  Tick.

  ‘I’ll get the next one,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  So, the million-pound question: do I fancy him? Yep. He’s my type, and best of all, he knows how to listen. As for the age difference, would anyone raise the issue of a bloke fancying a woman ten years his junior? No, so let’s not even. Pity I’m not up for romance at the moment. I’m over Cockweasel but there’s no need to prove it by sleeping with some random. Like Nan says: a bit of time on my own will do me good. (Just last week, she asked if I thought she should go on Tinder. I was like, no way! She’s seventy-five, all those dick pics would finish her off.)

  It was only as I clocked the Silk FM poster on the bus home that I remembered I hadn’t mentioned the email from one of their DJs. A bloke called Richard Young. Seems I’ve been longlisted for the Voice of London thingamajig. I’ll tell Tom next time I see him – assuming there is a next time. I’ll check the forecast for Aquarius and see what’s on the horizon.

  RICHARD

  Old saying: one of the best feelings in the world is to do a good deed anonymously and have it discovered by accident. Well, let’s see if putting Harriet Brown on the Voice of London longlist turns out to be a good deed. If not, I’ll keep shtum about having cast the deciding vote. (The Transport for London marketing people were more enthusiastic about a Streatham woman who works in a call centre but I turned the charm up to eleven and talked them round.)

  Sometimes I try to work out how people look based on how they sound on the radio then check Google Images to see if I’m right. I’m seldom wide of the mark and was spot on in the case of two of the twelve finalists. The TfL PR woman brought them into the studios for what she called ‘a mingle’, so we could get their measure. Quality of voice aside, were they people who could, in PR-speak, be ‘ambassadors for London’s transport network’? Whatever that means.

  By the time they arrived, I’d narrowed the field to three front-runners and checked them out online. They were younger than typical Silk FM listeners, who are chiefly ABC1 baby boomers with a taste for crooners and a fondness for the good old days (as if they ever existed). What with Spotify, Alexa, podcasts and all the other alternatives just a click away it’s a miracle radio survives but somehow we dinosaurs soldier on.

  Samira Khan from Croydon was as vivacious as she sounded, exactly matching the image in my mind’s eye. Likewise Acton’s Andy Smith: short, round and smiley. The one who surprised me was Harriet Brown from Walthamstow. Having been impressed by her entry (she read a Shakespeare sonnet, a bold choice) I’d visualized a plump woman with short blonde hair. How wrong can you be? It turns out that Harriet is slim with long brown hair and a lovely smile that put me in mind of Julia Roberts. She’s in her mid-thirties, an actress-slash-singer working double shifts in a café while waiting for her career to take off.

  Not to be the voice of doom but how many performers get a break after thirty? Yet Harriet Brown is still plugging away, hoping for the role that will see her name in lights, so she can say, ‘Told you so!’

  As per the arrangement with the TfL PR, I recorded brief interviews with all twelve contenders. The plan was to give listeners a chance to judge their persona
lities as well as their voices then open the premium-rate phone-in vote, which rakes in a ton of cash for Silk FM.

  Posing for photos, I made sure to stand next to Harriet. I only just managed to stop myself asking the name of her perfume.

  After the photographer left, the PR woman swore all the contestants to secrecy, reminding them it was vital to keep quiet about being longlisted until the official campaign launch next week. I lingered longer than planned, making small talk, but it was Harriet I was drawn to, probably because of her lack of bullshit. Unlike the other contenders, she didn’t pretend to be a regular listener. In fact, she apologized for not recognizing my name.

  ‘I only found out about the competition through a poster on the bus.’

  ‘No need to apologize,’ I said. ‘It’s just a matter of time before we welcome you to the Silk FM family. Ol’ Blue Eyes gets everyone in the end. Well, everyone with a soul.’

  Turned out the only Sinatra song she knew properly was ‘My Way’. Can you believe it? The worst thing he ever recorded. I told her she should check out ‘One For My Baby’ the second she got home. I’m not sure why I happened to mention that particular song – maybe it suited my mood – but she surprised me by whisking out her iPhone and finding it on Spotify. There followed a peculiar scene: me, Harriet Brown and the other finalists standing in the Silk FM boardroom, sipping cheap white wine while listening to one of the most melancholy songs ever recorded.

  I could see she liked it. Roly-poly Andy Smith started to make jokes, just as that blissful piano intro crept in (‘Music to slash your wrists by,’ he quipped) and she shushed him, which was brave. Then she insisted on listening to all four minutes and twenty-four seconds in respectful silence.

  She was clearly moved by the lyrics. She may even have welled up. Perhaps she was feeling a bit raw, like me, or maybe she’s just one of those people whose emotions are too close to the surface. Stealing a glance in her direction, I definitely felt a connection. As if I’d known her for years.

  Odd.

  Very odd indeed.

  ‘You’re my kind of girl,’ I told her as the song ended, then immediately regretted calling her a ‘girl’. Very non-PC. Before I knew it, I was fretting about sounding like a lecher. I found myself looking into her eyes (green, soulful) and wondering if a fifteen-year age-gap is really such a big deal and whether I should invite her out for a drink.

  Luckily, I told myself to stop being an idiot. Number one, I’m married (well, technically). Number two, I’m too old for her, even assuming she’s single. Number three, I’ve never been good at chatting up women. It’s one thing sounding like a smoothie on the radio, quite another being a ladies’ man in real life.

  I knew Bonnie would tell me off for thinking this way.

  ‘Women don’t like smooth, they like real.’

  Then again, my own wife would hardly be offering me dating advice. Or would she? Given the circumstances, perhaps it’s the least she could do.

  It was raining so I took a taxi home. (God knows why I keep the Jag; I hardly use it.) The flat seemed chillier than usual, emptier too. Sitting at the oak table, I looked around the kitchen. The granite worktops, the range cooker, the butler’s sink, the recessed lighting subtly illuminating cupboards filled with Anthropologie tableware, the Rothko prints – all chosen by Bonnie in happier times. Taking a supper tray into the book-lined sitting room, I sat in my favourite Charles Eames chair and watched a couple of Seinfelds while polishing off a bottle of Merlot and toying with an M&S champignons en croute (mushrooms in a sherry and spinach sauce wrapped in flaky puff pastry).

  Only as I was brushing my teeth did I notice anything odd. The loo seat was raised. I’d learned long ago never to leave it up for fear of triggering a spat with Bonnie.

  ‘Will you please remember to put the seat down?’

  ‘Or you could put it down when you use the loo. I’m a man, I need it raised.’

  ‘It looks better down.’

  ‘It’s a loo seat. Who cares what it looks like?’

  ‘I bloody do!’

  Trivial, I know, but the point is, leaving the seat down was the norm around here, which meant there were two possibilities: either I’d forgotten (highly unlikely) or someone had been in the flat.

  I had a shrewd idea who. Time to change the locks.

  GEORGE

  I’d never call my son stupid but only someone afflicted by hopeless naïveté would leave a key under the mat, especially in London. You never knew who might get a copy made so they can pop in for a pit stop while you’re playing records and talking merde on the radio.

  Since my return from Palm Springs I’d been immersed in a new ‘project’. Her name was Imelda Shine. She was eighty, like me, but smelt of money, a fragrance that always has a rejuvenating effect, shaving off years, sometimes decades. (Some ‘ladies who lunch’ prefer a younger gentleman; others are happier with a man their own vintage – someone who remembers rationing and the Coronation.)

  I’d first met Imelda in Monte Carlo. She was mourning the loss of her billionaire husband (big in oil, I gather) and making a magnificent job of it, selflessly spending long hours at the roulette table. It wasn’t so much her svelte figure that caught my eye as the insouciance with which she took losses in her stride: tens of thousands lost on a spin of the wheel were met with a shrug. An impressive display of sangfroid. My kind of gal.

  The widow Shine was one of those people for whom summer is a verb, as in, ‘I summer in Positano’. Our first tête-a-tête, in a hilariously expensive harbour-side restaurant, was memorable for the way she ordered three Dover sole: one for herself, the other two expertly filleted by a white-gloved waiter for the benefit of four stray cats. She was amused by my spectacles – actual rose-tinted glasses – and I was delighted by everything she said. Dinner led to coffee in her suite at the Hôtel de Paris, then breakfast, and the rest, as they say, is history.

  On her annual return to London, at the end of September, Imelda invariably took up residence in her suite at the Savoy. This year, she invited me to move in for what she called ‘fun and frolics in the last chance saloon’. Despite being born and bred in an insalubrious part of London, my favourite words have always been ‘room service’ so it seemed churlish to decline, especially since she refused to allow me to put my hand in my pocket for anything except a little blue pill. (Merci, Pfizer; may your share price rise as reliably as my honourable member.)

  As Blanche DuBois didn’t say, I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers’ widows. Some people, my son included, disapprove, but I like to think I provide a service as essential to the wellbeing of my benefactresses as the phalanx of doormen, chauffeurs and concierges who cater to their every whim; the legions of hairdressers, manicurists and dress designers who send them into the world feeling good about themselves; and the battalions of cruise ship’s captains, waiters and maîtres d’ whose unctuous smiles reassure them that their arrival is the highlight of the year.

  Years ago, Richard accused me of having no conscience. When I insisted that nothing in my career had caused me to lose a minute’s sleep he informed me that I was a sociopath, something I found laughable.

  But when I committed a transgression that even I had to admit was beyond the pale (don’t worry, all will be revealed) I was forced to take an unflinching look at myself and didn’t like what I saw. In a moment of weakness, I’d recently drunk-emailed Richard at Silk FM, hoping to elicit some kind of response, whilst knowing he’d ignore me, as he had for twenty years. I remember thinking how much simpler everything would have been were I a Catholic. A spot of mumbo-jumbo, a wafer on the tongue and I’d have been off the hook for all eternity.

  Still, as Lady Macbeth nearly says, ‘What’s done is done and cannot be undone,’ and there’s nothing to be gained by looking in life’s rear-view mirror. For me, the only way is to keep moving forward, like a shark, and dedicate myself to pulling off one last job, the Big One – an adventure that would finally allow me to put
my feet up and dispense with those little blue pills once and for all.

  Which is why I’d told Imelda I was off to South America, ‘doing some hush-hush scouting for an old pal in the mining industry’. My four-week no-show in London served two purposes. As everyone knows, absence makes the heart grow fonder so it’s only sensible to create an artificial scarcity of oneself. The clandestine nature of my supposed trip also set the scene for the ruse that was to come. Imelda, of course, had no idea that my ‘travels’ would take me no further than Rochester House in Camden, where my old mucker, Paddy, kindly provided a bolthole anytime I needed a place to lay my chapeau. I’d have preferred somewhere more salubrious but the truth is, without the generosity of the widow Shine and her ilk I don’t have two brass farthings to rub together. The state pension barely keeps me in Grecian 2000.

  Now, after a month of lying low, I was ‘back in town’ and looking forward to ‘the big one’.

  (So, apparently, was Mrs Shine. Boom-tish. I’m here all week.)

  TOM

  Bad day at the office. The new editor, Colin, emailed asking for a ‘road map of your work-in-progress and your focus going forward’. Mate, just ask for an update, like an actual human. I know I should find another job. This one pays a pittance and the work makes me want to cut off my typing fingers, but finding the courage to quit isn’t easy.

  As a rule, I’m, like, conscientious to a fault and never late for work, or anything else. Two, maybe three times in my whole life. I can’t bear to keep people waiting. I knew a girl at uni. She was studying psychology and told me I was neurotic about punctuality because my dad froze me out as a kid and was a stickler for timekeeping. Apparently, I’d learned not to anger him in a bid to win his approval. My goody-two-shoes behaviour was rooted in a deep-seated fear of abandonment, blah blah blah. I told her, ‘He’s a difficult sod but he’d never abandon me.’

  ‘You’re missing the point,’ she said. ‘He already did. Everything you do – passing exams, phoning regularly, letting him win at tennis – it’s about one thing: trying to get your father to love you.’