Julia Gets a Life (34 page)

            But I can’t. I’m at work. And I have a) plus b) to contend with. It’s bad enough having this development happening in the first place. (Just when I’ve got used to celibacy and reading articles about post-menopausal women learning to hang glide). Don’t know how to feel about it. Don’t know how to deal with it. Except that I am beginning to realise that my body/Id/hypothalamus or whatever, is clamouring for a return to my fall back position of last thirty eight years (well, thirty three odd - Patrick Borrell in Reception class was the first.)

            Fall back position is patently bad. Fall back position involves becoming completely focused on the object in question plus suffering impaired sensory reception for all other stimuli. Fall back position also involves endless analysis of every tiny thing the subject does, appears to do, looks as though he might consider doing, in relation to perceived interest/lack (eek!) of interest in self. Fall back position involves total inability to concentrate on anything else
at all
. In short, fall back position is to be avoided at all costs.

            I am thirty eight. Why does this still happen to me? I should have grown out of this by now.

            Funny, isn’t it? When I was seventeen, I thought it was simply a function of being seventeen. When I fell in love with Richard, I thought it was simply a function of being in love. When I lighted upon Howard as a sex-object, as opposed to just having him as a friend whilst fall back position still channelled, if sluggishly at times, towards Richard, I thought it was simply a function of being a (stressed and lacking any self esteem type) cuckold and/or being short of sex.

            Now, in a tent (sober) at ten past two in the morning, I realise a simple and elegant truth. It is simply a function of
being me
.

            Undesirable me?

            Halitosis me?

            Wrinkled me?

            Desperate/clingy looking me?

            Ancient me?

            Two paper bag me?

           
Richard-joke: Went to bed with a new bird last night. I wouldn’t say she was ugly, but I had to wear a paper bag over my own head, just in case hers fell off.

            Boom bloody boom. One of Stuart’s, no doubt. Drawn from that deep, deep well of crap jokes that men tell, to put shagging and birds in their proper perspective. Ho, ho.  

            I keep telling myself that Colin fancies me, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it makes me feel marginally worse. Like I did when, at sixteen, I had a bubble cut perm. I was asked to dance no less that five times that evening. But each man that tried sported some sort of hair loss. And here I am, whipping myself up into a frenzy of dithering vapours about a child-man of twenty four!

            Why, oh why can’t it just happen the way it is supposed to? Why can’t I meet someone, find myself fantastically attracted to him, find that he’s fantastically attracted to me as well, have sex, have a
lurve
thing, and kind of take it from there?               Why?

            Well, it sure as hell ain’t gonna be happening tonight, Ju. Whatever slant I try to put on things, Craig James does not want to be anywhere near me.

            All the little details are in place. I’m here, towards the back of the tent, with a rag-taggle, loosely
Kite
based ensemble. And Craig is up the front with goodness knows who. There seems an almost endless procession of people (TV, radio and generally
beautiful
people) who want to be inside the aura - an aura I hadn’t really, up to this moment, acknowledged, but which,
boy!
am I suddenly noticing now. Who
are
these people? I make out Heidi Harris, Jonathan Sky, a sometime presenter of the National Lottery, and a weather girl who looks as clued up about isobars as I am about the physics of nuclear fission.

            And our eyes are failing to meet.          

            And failing at every reasonable opportunity they would normally have for meeting. Every scan of the room involves a blink just about
then
, every pass to and fro involves a careful detour, every reason to connect involves a third party. One such arrives now. It is Nigel.

            ‘You going to come and hit this party?’ He seems ebullient and happy. A concerted effort, and I slip out of my reverie long enough to wonder how much private agony he carries behind those pale, shiny eyes. And I wonder also, if he’s just been to bed with Jacinta. She’s gone home now, Tim told me, her job done. Done in all senses? I wish she was still here to divert my attention.

            ‘I’m not sure,’ I begin. ‘I’m rather tired, actually. I got up so early to drive here, and....’

            ‘Pah! Believe me, you’ll get your best stuff tonight. They’re all on free hooch, don’t forget. And anyway, you can sleep till Thursday if you want to.’

            I almost actually
say
, ‘No I can’t. Time Of Your Life are expecting me Monday. The Tweenies will fret it they’re left in their box.’ But I don’t. My whole lifestyle seems suddenly hopeless. A sad excuse for a life, in fact. And then there are the beach shots.

            ‘And hang on,’ he goes on, saying it for me. ‘What about...’

            And reminds me that it was my bright idea to do a shoot on the beach in the first place.

            Not mine at all, of course. Colin’s or someone’s. But I nod and recant.

            And off we all go to the party.

            Where I have decided to be pro-active. One can only be avoided if one is consciously striving to instigate contact. I am therefore intent to do anything but. Which isn’t, as it turns out, difficult. We come in two cars; him first, and me later, and by the time I arrive he is six deep in groupies. He couldn’t see me if his life depended on it. Too much glare from the lip gloss and ironed hair, and the dazzle of super sheer one denier tights.

            I spend much of it pro-active in a far flung corner. By the time Colin and I decide we should go greet the dawn on the shingle, I feel crumpled, dejected and one hundred and seven.

            Brighton beach, like any beach, is never quite so beautiful as when it is empty and lit by an oversized sun. There is a cloudscape so pink and so luminous that if one were to paint it one’s work would be considered childish. A pewter sea rolls carpets of foam on to the pebbles and the sharp caw of seagulls cuts through the cool salty air. It is beautiful. It makes all my senses tingle. And that I’m as far away from the drudgery of my normal working life that I could sit down and cry right now, this minute. I don’t want to go back to it.

            ‘Fuck me, it’s parky. Got a sweatshirt in there, Nige?’

            Tim is striding about the shingle flapping his arms across his chest. Gusts of breath cloud his face as he speaks. Nigel produces some sort of wind-cheater type garment. One of several he has brought in a canvas holdall, for the shoot. As ever, prepared. As ever, organised. I recall what Jax said about
Kite
being his family. Far away from their relatives for much of the year, they could, I decide, do a lot worse.

            Craig, who up till now has exhibited an absorbing attachment to a close study of the crusting of fauna attached to the groynes, (this after exhibiting an attachment to a close study of the paving stones of Brighton’s front) wanders over to be given one also. We didn’t bring Davey or Jon, in the end; the one was too pissed and the other too busy. Heidi Harris’s charms proved too alluring.

            ‘Right,’ I say, conscious of the sun’s upward progress and anxious to maintain the brisk (brusque, frankly) tone I’ve decided to adopt as another defence against falling back to fall back position. ‘Let’s get this sorted. Off you both go, up the beach. Over there’

            Nigel, who is thankfully unaware of the pathetic tableaux being played out in front of him, says, ‘why don’t they skim some stones or something. Look like they’d rather be skimming than shagging ha, ha.’

            And suddenly, we can hear sirens.

            We all turn to watch, as headlamps arc whitely against the now pink washed buildings, and strobe as they flash past the promenade rails. There are four or five cars, all moving quickly along the empty road.

            ‘What the hell’s going on?’ says Nigel, picking up his holdall and setting off up the beach. Craig and Tim jog across, and we too make our way back up to the steps. The sirens have stopped now, but the blue-red still flashes, just off the main road.

            ‘Isn’t that the club we were at?’ asks Tim. ‘What’s can this be all about?’

            By the time we too have reached the promenade, Nigel is already on his way back across the road towards us.

            ‘Drugs bust,’ he mouths. ‘It’s seething in there.’

            ‘So’s Davey and Jon,’ says Tim.

            Nigel shakes his head.‘ I couldn’t see either of them. With any luck Dave’ll be comatose somewhere, and Jon’ll be with Heidi.’ He pushes his hand across his forehead. The scar looks the colour of coral in the dawn light. ‘Look,’ he says. I’ll go and sort what I can. Best bet for you is to get back to the hotel. We don’t want your faces in this, if we can help it.’

            He turns and runs back across the road, and we start walking the few hundred yards to the hotel.

            ‘God, what a long day,’ I say, to them both.

            ‘Fucking parties,’ says Craig, to no-one in particular, but least of all me.

            Tim nods.

            ‘Fucking right.’

            And hell, I’m fed up. At the start of today I was;

            Happy

            Optimistic

            In control

            Excited

            Now, despite having done what I
know
is some seriously good work, I am

            Miserable

            Negative

            Feeling dissatisfied with the life I have

            Scared about the prospect of a new one

            I’m also wide awake. I can’t relax, can’t sleep, can’t face watching a film. What I need, I decide, is a deep, bubbly, five star bath and to not stress myself about unsatisfactory encounters with boys. I can get that at home, thanks.

            But wouldn’t you just
know
. I am in the middle of giving myself a ylang-ylang scented foam moustache and trying out
shaver socket only
(shaver socket
on-
ly, tra la la la
la-
la) as a new mantra, when I hear a soft knocking. It is almost six am, but I did not order a paper. Neither did I order breakfast, an alarm call, my shoes to be polished, ironing, a pedicure, or a complimentary aromatherapy massage.

            But the knocking persists. I rise, meringue-like, from the water, and put my dripping self into the white five star robe. It is so heavy that I am stooping slightly as I answer the door.

            And there he is.

            T-Shirt, the ubiquitous boxers, and a carrier bag saying
Cardiff Royal
Hotel; For Your Laundry
.