Brand New Friend (10 page)

‘Is this some sort of practical joke?’ asked Rob, standing up to study the magazine for himself.

‘No,’ snapped Ashley. ‘It may seem far-fetched but this is me doing something to help you out. If you don’t want any help, fine – I’ll leave you alone.’ With that, she sat down on the sofa, changed the TV channel with the remote and folded her arms across her chest.

‘Look,’ said Rob, sitting down next to her, ‘I’m really sorry. You’re right, I did say I’d try to be open-minded about this. It’s just that—’

‘What?’

‘You’re asking me to go on a date with a bloke.’

‘And?’

‘Well, it’s a bit gay, isn’t it? I mean surely a bloke going on a date with another bloke is pretty much the definition of gayness. And as I’m completely heterosexual I think I’d just feel a bit uncomfortable doing it.’

‘Making friends through personals ads is not “a bit gay”.’

‘You’re right,’ replied Rob. ‘It’s not a bit gay. It’s actually
very
gay. Two men who don’t know each other meeting up in a bar or a restaurant for the sole purpose of getting to know each other better is completely and utterly gay. There’s no way round it.’

‘But, Rob,’ said Ashley, ‘you’re
not
gay. You have a girlfriend –
me
. You’re not suddenly going to swap which team you bat for just because you’ve gone for a drink with a bloke.’ Rob shrugged, unconvinced. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘other than it being “a bit gay”, what did you think of the ad? It took me ages to write.’

‘It was . . . okay.’

‘Only okay? Didn’t you hear me say it took ages?’

‘Well . . . just out of curiosity,’ began Rob, ‘why did you use the word “carousing”?’

‘I thought it was funny,’ explained Ashley. ‘I did wonder whether people do still carouse, but I decided to go with it anyway. Why do you ask?’ She looked at Rob and frowned. ‘No, Rob, “carousing” isn’t shorthand for being gay.’

‘You’ve still got to admit it’s pretty gay, though,’ said Rob. ‘Think about it. Do straight people carouse? I don’t think so. Straight people are terrible at having a good time. Terrible. Gay people invented Disco. You can’t get better good-time music than Disco.’

Ashley sighed in disbelief. ‘You do realise that you’re employing an embarrassing level of stereotype?’

‘Of course.’ Rob nodded. ‘All I’m saying is that since I’m not gay there’s not a lot of point in writing an ad that makes me sound like a latterday Liberace.’

‘Was there anything you liked about it?’

Rob paused for a moment. ‘I liked the “likes” you’ve put down but I’m not sure about the “dislikes”.’

‘But they’re all true and they’re not gay. You’re always telling me how disgusting hazelnuts and peanuts are. And you said you knew straight away that you weren’t going to get on with Mia’s boyfriend Edwin because you saw he had an Anastacia album in his car.’

‘All that screeching,’ said Rob. ‘Surely no normal person can like that stuff.’ He sighed heavily and studied the ad again. ‘It’s quite sobering having your personality reduced to three sentences. Puts everything into perspective. This is me: a slightly camp bloke with an intense hatred of caterwauling songstresses and hazelnuts. Anyway, thank you very much for doing all this for me, babe, but I can’t see it working somehow.’

‘You don’t even want to hear your replies, then?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t get too excited. You’ve only had four.’

‘Four?’

‘Yes, four.’

‘You’re telling me that out of all the thousands of people that read
City List
every week only four wanted to befriend me? I thought you said people were more friendly “up north”.’

‘They are usually,’ replied Ashley, ‘but I think you’re looking at it all wrong. If the ad had read, “Handsome and witty man working in the creative industries wishes to widen his social circle in the north-west” you’d have been inundated with people wanting to be your friend. But I thought you’d prefer to play it down a little. You know, make friends with people who like you for being you.’

‘It all sounds more than a little desperate,’ he said, then paused. ‘So, the four people who are interested in my ad, what are they like?’

‘Well, the idea is that when people see an ad they like they ring and leave a message for you. Call them up and have a listen.’

Rob dialled the number Ashley gave him, and entered the pin number that enabled him to access the messages.

Message 1:
‘Has this thing started? Oh, right . . . okay . . . My name’s Veejay . . . People call me . . . er . . . Veejay. I like music . . . a lot and I’m looking for someone to go to gigs with and the pub . . . and, er . . .’ Laughs ‘ . . . someone to go chasing birds with because . . . I’ve tried it on my own and it’s no fun without a mate to back you up. So, if this sounds like you, give me a call. Cheers.’

Message 2:
‘Hi, my name’s Andy Ward. I’ve just started working at my brother’s software sales company out in Hale Barns. At the minute, though, I’m living with my sister in Chorlton. I just think it would be nice to make some new mates out this way as I’ve been living in Spain for the last few years and don’t know many people around here. Anyway, that’s me. Give us a ring if you’re interested.’

Message 3:
‘Hi . . . er . . . I’m Nigel Wilshire. I’m thirty – hang on, make that thirty-one – and I’m looking to expand my circle of friends. I work in IT for an insurance firm but in my spare time I like to play the acoustic guitar. I like cinema too, and going to the pub. I don’t mind peanuts, though. Hope this all sounds up your street.’

Message 4:
‘Hi there . . . I’m Patrick Metcalfe. I’m thirty-nine, just coming out of a five-year marriage, and I’ve moved jobs up here. I liked your ad and I’m trying to broaden my social horizons. That’s pretty much it. Give me a ring.’

‘So, what do you think?’ asked Ashley, as Rob put down the phone.

‘What do I think?’ repeated Rob. ‘That this whole exercise has just become more gay than even I dreamed possible.’

‘Besides that,’ said Ashley, laughing, ‘which one did you like?’

‘None of them sounded like someone I could be mates with.’

‘You can’t tell anything from a call,’ said Ashley. ‘Although, that said, my gut feeling is that the first guy, Veejay, sounded a bit laddy for my liking. The second however, Andy, sounded really nice. And well that guy Nigel seemed a bit needy if you ask me, and I wasn’t sure about the last guy, Patrick, at all. But you should see them all, then make your decision. What have you got to lose?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ replied Rob. ‘How about my dignity, self-respect and sense of self-worth?’

‘But you’ll do it?’

‘No,’ said Rob. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘Then what are you going to do? I don’t want you carrying on feeling the way you’ve been feeling.’

‘Well, I won’t,’ began Rob. ‘At least, not any more. Because, bizarrely, your extremely gay plan has helped me come to a decision and it’s this: I’ve been thinking about it in the wrong way. I don’t need friends up here. I’ve got you, the boys are only a train ride away and I’ve more than enough work to do. Why would I need anyone else? No, from now on, I’ll be fine with my own company.’

‘That’ll never work,’ said Ashley. ‘It’s what you’ve had since January and it’s made you miserable.’

‘Yeah, I know. But this time round it’ll be different. I’m choosing to be happy about it. I’m going to celebrate my no-mates status. Before I came to this conclusion I felt like I had a flashing neon sign over my head with “loser” spelt out on it. But you can only lose
if you take part.
’

‘So you’re refusing to take part?’

‘Yup.’

‘But what are you refusing to take part
in
?’

‘The belief that humans need friends,’ said Rob. ‘I’m refusing to believe that I need anyone in my life apart from you and the boys in London. The truth is, I’ve always liked my own company. I don’t know why I’ve been torturing myself trying to make new mates when I’m the best mate I’m ever going to have.’

Ashley looked confused. ‘You’re planning to become a hermit?’

‘Yeah,’ said Rob, suddenly finding the word ‘hermit’ amusing. ‘A hermit with a girlfriend. And before you say anything, this doesn’t mean I’ll start begging you to listen to bands you won’t like or go and see films you’ll hate or anything like that. No, there has to be no pretence. From now on I’m going to be a pint-and-crossword man.’

‘A pint-and-crossword man?’

‘Yes,’ said Rob, standing up and putting on his coat. ‘A pint-and-crossword man. And do you know what else?’

‘What?’

‘As you’re going back to work in a bit I’m going to take myself off right now and have my first northern pint-and-crossword session. I’ll see you in the morning.’

It was fast approaching nine thirty and Rob was sitting in the Lazy Fox on Barlow Moor Road contemplating the
Guardian
quick crossword over his second pint of Guinness. He had selected this pub because, unlike BlueBar with its crowd of cool young drinkers, the Lazy Fox was a scruffy pub populated mainly by old men, with the odd scattering of late-thirty-somethings and early-forty-somethings. And as a solitary bloke doing a crossword and sipping a pint, Rob was almost invisible. He looked around and saw plenty of other pint-and-crossword men besides himself: a middle-aged guy with a beard, a pint of mild and the
Manchester Evening News;
a tallish guy in his late thirties with a pint of lager and a folded copy of
The Times;
and a small, wizened, elderly man with half a bitter, who was spending more time staring into space than tackling the
Daily Telegraph
’s cryptic crossword. Pint-and-crossword men were everywhere.

Rob had first come across the pint-and-crossword man phenomenon when his first boss at Ogilvy-Hunter had sent him to Norwich to attend a three-day software training course. It had finished at five thirty every evening and, as Rob didn’t know anyone in Norwich and had no one to do nothing with, he decided to go to the pub on his own. He sat down with his pint in the lounge of the Crown and Spire, possibly the dingiest pub in Norwich town centre, picked up an abandoned newspaper and did the crossword. Three hours and four pints of Guinness later, having spoken to no one but the barman he had completed the
Daily Mail
crossword. When he told Phil the story on his return to London, his friend had pointed out that Rob had now joined an elite band of males known as pint-and-crossword men. ‘They’re all over the place,’ Phil explained. ‘In every pub across the land there’s at least one solitary bloke sitting with a pint, doing the crossword.’ Soon Rob found it difficult to go into a pub without making sure first that there was a pint-and-crossword man in attendance. Without exception there were always one or two – men happy to be out of the house, challenging their minds while sipping a pint. It was clever, really: a manoeuvre that gave the impression you were socialising without any of the inconvenience of real people. These men proved that John Donne was wrong: any man could be an island, entire of himself, if he had a drink in his hand and something to occupy his mind.

Having been a pint-and-crossword man for half an hour, Rob was pondering the answer to five down, six letters, ‘A tasty time if only once a year’, when his concentration was disturbed by a couple entering the otherwise empty rear room in which he had lodged himself for the evening. They sat down at a table a little way from him. He could only see the back of the man’s head, which was obscuring the woman, but from their clothes and demeanour Rob guessed they were of a similar age to himself. He couldn’t fathom why they were in the Lazy Fox rather than somewhere more happening on a Friday night.

He returned to his crossword and his pint, but occasional snippets of their conversation kept filtering through. He abandoned the crossword and listened, fascinated, to what was going on. The man didn’t speak much, but the woman had enough to say for both of them. At one point Rob overheard her demand, ‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’ and had to bite his tongue to stop himself rejoining, ‘Because you won’t let him get a word in edgewise.’ He could see that the guy was as tense as a cornered animal. As Rob continued covertly to observe them, their untouched drinks and constant whispering all began to add up. This wasn’t a young couple on a date. This was a young couple in the process of splitting up.

Now Rob could barely take his eyes off them. Watching a couple split up in public was one of the best forms of free entertainment ever devised. It was theatre at its purest, in which the actors and the situations were chillingly real and reassuringly familiar. He knew that it was rather ghoulish to enjoy a couple’s misery but it was such a rare, delicate pleasure – the French truffle of overheard conversations – that it was impossible not to indulge in it for just a few moments.

Over his newspaper Rob could see that the boyfriend’s hand gestures seemed defensive, as though the woman might attack him at any second. As their argument became more heated they both found it difficult to control their voices – the woman especially. Soon, every time the man tried to open his mouth she spoke over him and eventually he faded away without a fight. Rob knew his body language all too well from his own failed relationships: the man was in the wrong and didn’t have a single argument with which to defend himself. And, sitting across from him, the woman was in the right but was never going to get what she wanted, the way she was going about it.

Rob looked at his watch and tried to guess how long it would be before the argument reached a conclusion. The woman had made the key mistake all women make in arguments: she didn’t know when to stop. Yes, she was right. Yes, her boyfriend understood he was in the wrong. But once those two facts had been established what else was there to say? By dragging out the argument and metaphorically kicking him when he was on the ground she was undoing all her good work. With each word that left her mouth Rob could see that the man was caring just a little bit less about her and their relationship. In a few moments he’d explode. Another minute and a half, Rob guessed. Seven seconds later he realised he’d been wrong.