by Gary Locke
They had been home from their paintballing event for about an hour and Gayle hadn’t had that hot bubble bath she had promised herself yet because, instead, she and Clive had just collapsed into each other on the sofa and were so comfortable just tangled up in each other’s arms. They had spoken about how each of them almost felt like they had when they were first getting to know each other and how, right now, felt like the chance of making a brand new start. They had even confronted the last decade or so and it felt like, in doing so, they had exercised many, many demons and, right now to Gayle, that whole period felt like some, strange, unwanted bad dream.
The main aspects of their conversation though had centered on a brand new set of promises to each other that were ruled by two main points.
One - From now on they would always be open and honest with each other and,
Two - They would make sure that life was fun again.
They would laugh and they would joke and they would be silly.
They had allowed life to make them too serious and, in turn, too distant with one another. They promised to make sure things felt more like they had in the past. They would make time for doing things that they both wanted to do; together. They would stop to see the moon at night; they would make love on a rooftop. (Obviously not literally. Unless you could find a flat roof, it would be completely bonkers. But certainly metaphorically they would.)
For Gayle, she felt alive again, almost re-born. She felt a rush of inspiration running through her veins and even had a great idea about how to finish her poem / song “Next Time” that she had discussed with Jeremy the day before; and looked forward to being able to put it on the radiator cover next to “Echoes Through Time”. But with this whole “being open and honest” with each other promise she also realised that she would need to tell Clive about the date she had arranged with Lee.
Clive allowed his body to move gently as Gayle wriggled around. His eyes were also closed and his body happy to be resting in the embrace with his wife. He couldn’t help but think about the hot, bubble bath that Gayle had described on the way back home from the paintballing. He did feel warm and snug under the cover on the sofa but he had just spent a large amount of time out in the freezing elements, and a majority of that being sheltered by nothing more than a large tree. (Ah Tree-ie! Is it wrong to miss a tree so much and feel like you need to go back and see it again? Very soon?) Clive refocused on the fact that he felt like he had been chilled to the very marrow of his bones and would very much like, more than anything, to experience that hot bath. It didn’t really go with the tough guy image that he had just worked hard for though, did it? He had just gallantly laid his life on the line (again, metaphorically) and then rescued Gayle in her hour of need, to tell her he wanted to go for a bubble bath would probably blemish all that a little. As such, he decided it best that he didn’t mention it and to try and cling on to this new, tough, green-beret, animal aura for as long as he could. (He knew he was only one stubbed toe away from reverting back to himself.)
Clive, too, was feeling rather good about life and, especially, the future right now. Just sitting here with Gayle, after experiencing what they had over the last couple of days and having possibly the most truthful and sincere conversation they had ever had, made everything feel great. And it made this house, their home, feel more like home than it ever had. Clive smiled to himself as he thought about the opportunity he would have to phone “slick”, the estate agent, and tell him he could shove his services up his arse: This House Is Not For Sale.
He did, however, feel a little bit uncomfortable about something else. He wasn’t sure whether he should tell Gayle about his planned date / it-doesn’t-have-to-be-a-date, date, that he had arranged with Stacey Wellington. It felt weird now that he had even agreed to it but back then, a whole day and a half ago, everything felt so different. He and Gayle were calling it a day and so he shouldn’t really have anything to feel guilty about. He couldn’t help but feel cautious though, everyone knows what happened and the trouble that was caused by the whole Ross and Rachel “we were on a break” Friends thing. He didn’t want that kind of scenario popping up and certainly didn’t feel like he could handle reading a letter that was eighteen pages long (front and back.) Sorry to any non-Friends geeks out there! But they had just made a promise to be honest and open with each other and so he knew that he had to tell her.
“I’ve got something I need to tell you.” He began, appropriately for someone who had something that they needed to tell someone.
Gayle fidgeted again on the sofa, this time moving so that she could look into Clive’s eyes.
“Ok. But before you do, I just want to say something quickly.”
“Ok” said Clive, looking back into her eyes.
“On Friday, a guy who comes into work asked me out for a drink. Back then, I had no idea this was going to happen. I was supposed to be meeting him tonight at the Farmers Arms but will obviously cancel it. Just thought I’d best tell you.”
Damn it, thought Clive.
Gayle was already making dates with other men – as soon as Jack moved out. This was just about..... wait a minute, a little perspective here. She had done nothing different to what he had done. In fact if she had made her date on Friday then she had done it before she even knew anything about the whole Love Is... events, whereas his “date” was made after he knew that they were going to be trying these weekend events.
Hmm?
That made things a little awkward. But hold on, he hadn’t made a date; he had made a it-doesn’t-have-to-be-a-date, date, which surely was totally different.
Wasn’t it?
Should he still tell her? She’d kind of stolen the thunder on this one anyway.
“Ok” said Gayle. “What did you want to say?”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve come to realise that I’m actually gay!” said Clive, completely not thinking through why he would say that, other than to try and be funny.
Gayle just stared at him in confusion.
“Don’t tell me, you and Knobhead are getting a place together? You’ve been at it for years!”
They both burst out laughing.
Gayle wondered about a couple of things as she laughed. Firstly, if this was the kind of weird thing that Clive would be saying from now on then maybe she shouldn’t have agreed to them being more funny and silly with each other in the future. Also, more alarmingly, Clive had been laughing for several seconds now and had not said a word; he certainly hadn’t denied it yet. Imagine being dumped by your husband because he’d fallen in love with someone like Knobhead. That’s probably the kind of blow you never recover from.
Clive continued laughing realising that his “date” news was now going to come across as even more strange seeing as he had tried to make the mood so light hearted with his ridiculous attempt at humour. He had to tell her the truth though and quickly because the way her face was changing it appeared she might actually be wondering if the whole coming out gesture might be real.
He tried to make it seem like something and nothing.
“How weird is this? I’d also arranged to go out tonight for a drink with someone. Do you remember Stacey Wellington from school? I saw her the other day and she asked me if I wanted to meet her – tonight as well, at the Farmers Arms – how strange – for a quick drink. Obviously I didn’t know this was going to happen as well.”
Gayle suddenly felt a little sad.
Wow, Clive was planning to get on with his life as well. She couldn’t help but feel a little angry and jealous as well and yet quickly realised that this was a good thing. It meant that she did care. And she couldn’t really be angry because Clive had only done the same thing as her – just reacted to a situation based on what they both thought was happening to their relationship just a couple of days earlier. She just felt incredibly thankful that they’d spent this weekend doing Jeremy’s increasingly crazy activities, because without them, as Jeremy had said to both of them; they would be another cou
ple just letting true love get lost forever.
Gayle realised something and so began to think out loud.
“I haven’t got Lee’s number or anything. I suppose he’d get the message if I didn’t show up..... or maybe I should go and tell him to his face?”
Clive thought about it, before adding.
“I haven’t got any way of letting Stacey know either. Maybe we should go together and tell them both..... together.”
Gayle slowly nodded her head and smiled.
“Yeah, we’ll do it together. Me and You vs. The World”.
Clive pulled Gayle close to him because he needed to kiss her. And he kissed her like he was going to kiss her for the rest of time.
Chapter Fifty: Turns Out…
“Are you ready?” Clive asked as he reached out and grabbed the handle of the front door to the Farmers Arms.
Gayle took a deep breath and nodded, fairly unconvincingly.
“I suppose so.” She said as Clive opened the door.
She hadn’t felt this nervous for as long as she could remember. She and Clive were only here to tell Lee and Stacey that they were actually giving their marriage another go; and they were here to do that together. What the hell would she have been like if she was arriving for her actual date, on her own?
As they walked into the pub, Clive grabbed hold of Gayle’s hand and leant over and whispered into her ear.
“Did I tell you how gorgeous you look tonight?”
“Yes!” said Gayle, a little snappily, those feelings of nervousness, if possible, intensifying as they walked into the pub.
Clive frowned a little.
He had been thinking that he would tell Gayle how fantastic she looked on a regular basis, like he always used to, but if she was going to get ratty with him if he did it too often, he may have to re-think his approach.
He took a look at his watch as they walked in. It was eight, thirty-three and twenty nine seconds. (Sure digital watches are a bit 1980’s but they give you so much more accuracy) Ok, good, he thought. Just as they had planned, they were half an hour late. As they had been getting ready, Gayle had suggested that they arrive a little late. She had remembered a conversation between Jenny and Janine at work in which they had both agreed that a good way to begin to break up with someone was to turn up late for a date because, straight away, it makes them a little pissed off with you. So, when the actual breaking up comes along, it’s less likely to be greeted with an over-emotional response. Of course this situation was different to that, but seeing as both Clive and Gayle had never broken up with someone before, or even got together with anyone before (apart from each other), this seemed like the closest thing they had to any advice on how to handle things.
After agreeing to this plan, Clive reassured Gayle that she didn’t need to aim to be late, she just needed to get ready as usual and that things would fall into place. And it had: thirty three minutes and twenty nine seconds of waiting for someone was surely enough to piss anyone off.
Gayle searched around the pub looking for Lee, the stocky water man. It was weird that two days ago she was excited about going on a date with him and yet now she felt nothing like that at all. She just wanted to find him, apologise for not being able to have that drink with him, and then, hopefully, be able to calm down and relax again. After intensely scanning the pub a couple of times, like a Terminator on a mission, Gayle first came across the ungainly figure of Clive’s “good” friend Robert Adshead, a.k.a. “Knobhead”, talking to an old-ish looking woman near the exit to the “beer garden” (the overgrown area where the smokers huddled in the cold next to the faulty patio heater). If she was a Terminator he’d be the first person on her list to be terminated. After that her robotic searching succeeded in its mission and she located Lee in the far corner of the pub, at the end of the bar. He was wearing a tight, white t-shirt that showed off his bulging arm muscles and he had a half-drunk pint in his right hand. He didn’t look like someone who was anxiously waiting for someone who was running late and was actually chatting, and laughing, with a rather tarty looking blonde girl in a red top who was sipping away at a glass of white wine.
Clive continued to hold Gayle’s hand and could actually feel the rhythm of her heartbeat through a pulse coming through her palm. He realised she was completely uptight about being here. They needed to find their “dates” quickly and get this over with. He thought that maybe if you were waiting for someone you may stand by one of the doors and so, first, focussed his eyes over to the beer garden door. There was no instant sign of Stacey but he did see the towering figure of Knobhead chatting up another woman who looked odds on to be a pensioner. He looked more like Peter Crouch than ever and, ironically, had to crouch to avoid wiping some hair gel onto the relatively low ceiling on that side of the pub.
Clive checked all the potential exit doors and toilets before changing his search to the bar area and, sure enough, after following it to the end, there was Stacey. She was near the corner, drinking white wine and talking to a rough looking meat-head in a white t-shirt that was clearly three sizes too small for him.
Gayle and Clive looked at each other at exactly the same time and said:
“There he is / there she is”
It only took them a split second of following each other’s eye line to realise that their “dates” were at the end of the bar – talking to one another. Wow, how strange was that?
“Ok,” said Clive. “Maybe they know each other? Oh well, two birds with one stone then, isn’t it?”
He couldn’t help but contemplate his own question: did Stacey and Lee know each other or was it fate that they had just met each other here tonight? Or maybe they had been introduced by someone they both knew before he and Gayle had arrived? Then again, is that the same thing as fate anyway? He cleared his mind and looked at Gayle, who now had the look of a small child being forced onto a ghost train ride at the fair for the first time.
Clive looked into Gayle’s eyes.
“Come on, let’s get it over with. Do you want me to do the talking?”
Gayle nodded and gave him a soft but warm smile.
“Ok then.” He said, squeezing her hand gently in a reassuring manner.
As they began walking towards the end of the bar, Clive now processed the situation. He was openly heading towards the biggest, most muscular and scary looking guy in the pub and was about to tell him that he’d stolen his date for the evening. Of course, his date was actually Clive’s wife and so, technically, Clive had the moral high ground on this one, but having the moral high ground means diddly-squat if you’re confronting someone who could clearly kick the living shit out of you with half of one of their little fingers. As such he began to feel a little nervous as well. He couldn’t also help but contemplate why Gayle had arranged a date with this guy; this Lee. Was this the type of guy that she would want to end up with if they were to split up? He was completely the opposite of him. What did that actually mean?
As they got nearer to Lee and Stacey, Gayle couldn’t help but wonder why Clive had arranged a date with Stacey Wellington. She was always loud and annoying at school. (Which, in fairness to Gayle, could have pretty much been a description of the way she felt about most of the girls at school.) And look at her now – dyed blonde hair, wearing so much make up she could make a Batman villain jealous, and just looking completely false. It was also odds on that she’d probably had a boob job by now; she was that type.
Gayle realised that maybe she was reverting to the teenage bitchiness that comes naturally to school girls and knew that she needed to rein it in a little. (Not a lot, just a little.) She also realised that dying you hair blonde may also be an easier way to hide the fact that you’ve got quite a bit of grey coming through and that maybe she should look into that herself. But was this the sort of girl that Clive would go for if he was single now? She was pretty much the total opposite of her. What did that say about things?
About ten feet away from Stacey and Lee, Clive was
still unsure about exactly what he was going to say to them. One thing he did know though was that he was going to use the “three steps back” technique that he used whilst out on his postal delivery. It was usually employed to be sure that you were prepared for any dogs that may speed out of a house to attack you but it would, hopefully, be equally effective in staying out of range of potentially angry, burly water delivery men. Also, if this Lee did take a swing / came after him at least the last few days had proven that Clive still had a nice turn of pace.
Both Clive and Gayle intently stared at the two of them as they got closer, and something completely unexpected happened. Lee whispered something into Stacey’s ear that made her laugh out loud. Clive couldn’t help but feel that if he was coming on a date with Stacey then he would have been completely unprepared. She had told him that he used to make her laugh and yet here he was showing up without a single, appropriate, joke to tell her. He would need to look up his Bob Monkhouse joke book, just in case any future situations in life demanded some classic, clean humour. Lee then whispered something else into Stacey’s ear only this time she didn’t laugh. Instead she just stared at Lee as his face slowly moved towards hers before their lips connected and they began kissing.
What the hell was going on?
They were supposed to be sitting there waiting for individual dates and yet they were now snogging – with each other. And right in front of Clive and Gayle. Admittedly probably unaware they were snogging in front of them, but they were snogging never the less. Clive wondered what it was that Lee had whispered into Stacey’s ear because whatever it was, it must have been pretty smooth.