Mr. Commitment (20 page)

“Hello again, young man,” said a voice next to me. It was Orange Lady from the registry office, holding a large glass of wine. “Where’s your friend?” she whispered loudly.

“Outside,” I explained. “Doesn’t like speeches.”

“Me neither,” said Orange Lady, then added, “Do you know, this is my fourth glass of wine?” She leaned unsteadily toward me until we were almost touching noses, and whispered loud enough for everyone at the surrounding tables to hear, “Very good stuff it is too. But I do believe it’s gone straight to my head!”

The best man’s speech was loaded with jokes about the groom’s ex-girlfriends, acting skills and personal habits. Meena’s dad thought this bloke was hilarious and kept patting Paul on the back heartily. The groom’s speech was even worse: he just harped on about how wonderful his new family was. There was no love in evidence at all, only gratuitous backslapping. He finished by proposing a toast to the newest Mrs. Amos-Midford in the world, and everyone in the room raised their glasses. There was a huge round of applause, and waiters appeared, filling everyone’s glasses with champagne. The band started to play an uptempo version of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” Paul and Meena made their way to the center of the room for the first dance and began twirling around as if they’d been beamed straight from some 1930s cocktail party. During the whole time it took for all this to happen, Mel didn’t take her eyes off me.

Edging around the wedding photographer and a man armed with a video camera, who were recording Meena and Paul’s every move, I made my way to Mel’s table.

“Hi,” I said, smiling. She looked beautiful. More beautiful than ever. Her hairstyle had changed yet again, and now it was short and messy in the kind of sexy way Meg Ryan could only dream of.

“Hi, Duff,” she said, standing up to hug me. “How are you? How was Paris?”

“Fine,” I lied. “And you? How’s everything with you?” I’d wanted to ask about the baby too, but didn’t want to bring it up in so public an arena.

“Okay,” she replied. She could obviously still read minds when she wanted to, because she then looked down at her stomach and added, “Everything’s fine there too. No need to worry.”

“Good.”

Silence.

“Didn’t I see you here with Julie? Where is she?”

“She’s just nipped to the toilet,” said Mel hurriedly. I could tell that she was lying, because she was fiddling nervously with her hair. She always did that when she lied. I took this as a good sign, however: Julie had obviously disappeared on purpose so that Mel and I could talk.

“Gone to look for more victims to turn into the undead, has she?”

“Don’t start, Duffy,” reprimanded Mel sternly. “Julie’s having . . . well, she’s having a tough time at the minute.”

What could possibly have fazed the mighty Julie? I wondered. Had they run out of polenta at her local Sainsbury? Had her Dyson vacuum cleaner spontaneously combusted? Or worse still, had she discovered that she and Mark would never be able to afford to live in their beloved Notting Hill Gate? I didn’t ask any of these questions of course, because it didn’t feel right baiting Julie without her being there.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked. “Nothing too painful I hope.”

“I can’t tell you, Duffy. At least not yet.” She paused. “I’ve got some news of my own, but you might not like it. I was going to call, but since you’re here I might as well tell you now. I told my bosses at work that I was pregnant and that I wanted to leave and they offered me a deal to make me stay.”

“That’s good,” I said. “If it’s what you want.”

She smiled. “It is . . . well, at least I think it is. The company has just taken over a group of radio stations in the north and I’ll be overseeing the restructuring of their sales divisions. It’s only a temporary project—around three months—but it’s a step up into higher management and if I do well it could mean big things in the future.”

“Sounds like you’ve come up trumps. So what’s the problem?”

“It’s away from London. I’ll have to spend Monday to Friday up there and then I’ll fly back to London at the weekends.”

“Mel,” I said nervously, “you’re being vague on purpose. Whereabouts up north is it?”

“Glasgow.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. I could feel a massive pause coming, until suddenly, from an unknown source, words came to rescue me. “Don’t go,” I said so quietly that I could barely hear myself.

“What?”

“I said, don’t go. I don’t want you to go, Mel. Stay here in London and marry me. I miss you. Whatever it is that makes you different from any woman I have ever met or could ever hope to meet—the very Melness of you—I miss that more than anything. It’s just over six months since we first split up and since then a lot has happened that I need to explain to you . . .” I stumbled as I searched for the right words to express what I wanted to say.

“The reason why I didn’t want to get married when you asked me was because I lacked faith in myself. I thought the minute we got married I’d feel trapped. I just couldn’t get it into my head that marriage wasn’t a conspiracy to hijack my independence. You knew that, and that’s why you broke off the engagement, because you didn’t want to make me do anything I’d regret. Well, I regret more than anything not marrying you. I regret that I’ll never be able to have the time back that I’ve missed with you. I promise you it’s not the baby that’s changed my mind. I changed my own mind. I want to marry you because I can see now that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. No, I don’t mean that, what I mean is that . . . that . . .”

“I think what you’re trying to say is that you’re not scared anymore,” said Mel softly.

“That’s right, I’m not scared—okay, maybe I’m a little nervous, but I’ll be all right. I’m not scared about sleeping with one person for the rest of my life, in fact I’m looking forward to it. I’ll admit I still feel a bit shaky about going to Ikea, but that’s something we can work out. The big thing is that I’m no longer scared I’ll ever fall out of love with you . . . or that you’ll ever fall out of love with me. I have to commit to . . . I
am
committed to you because without you nothing makes sense. Without you I’m not even myself. Without you I’m nothing.”

That was it. That was my big speech. I’d given my all and now it really was up to her. I studied her face for clues to her state of mind, to see if I’d finally managed to convince her to believe. There was a look about her that I couldn’t explain, but it made me feel that I’d managed to breach the barrier that had come between us. We were now standing barely inches apart.

Without speaking she reached for my hands, held them tightly and gazed deeply into my eyes, searching for the answers to everything she wanted to know. Then she started to cry.

“I want to believe you, Duffy,” she sobbed. “I want to believe you more than anything in the world. I look at your face and I hear your beautiful words and I’m nearly there, Duff. But nearly just isn’t good enough anymore. How do I know that you really mean what you say? How can I be sure that those old feelings won’t come back again?”

“I don’t understand. You’ve always gone on about how well you know me. How you know me better than I know myself. And it’s true. I’ve never met anyone who knows me like you do. So why can’t you see that I’m telling you the truth when I say that I want to marry you? Why can’t you read my mind?”

Her tears were in full flow and we had become the main attraction in this corner of the room. I didn’t care. I couldn’t see anyone but her.

“That’s just it,” she sobbed. “I don’t trust myself anymore. I don’t trust myself to make a decision that will affect not just your life, or my life, but the life of our baby too. I can’t tell what it is you’re thinking because I don’t know what I’m thinking and it scares me. I love you, Duffy, but I’m too scared to gamble everything when I can’t be sure.”

I couldn’t believe it. This was supposed to be our happy ending, the last reel of a romantic comedy, the point where the guy gets the girl, but somehow it had turned into
A Nightmare on Elm Street.

“I know I have to make a decision one way or the other for both our sakes,” she continued. “We just can’t carry on like this anymore. I know this is selfish of me, but I can’t make this decision right now, so I’m asking you for more time—time to think things through and get my head round all of this.” She leaned forward and kissed me. “My new job starts on Monday. I’ll be up in Glasgow all week but I’ll be back in London late Friday night and I promise you that by then I’ll have an answer for you.”

Bet you’re happy now

O
n the train back from Nottingham, frustrated at being unable to do any more than wait for Mel to make her decision, I formulated a plan. The perfect plan. A plan that would without a doubt convince her once and for all that she had nothing to be scared of, that I did love her and would always do so. The only drawback, however, was that it required the assistance of Julie. As in Mark and Julie. As in Nosferatu. As in the person who last time I checked ranked me lower on the evolutionary scale than pond scum. But that’s great plans for you—they always carry with them an element of danger. By the time Dan and I got home from the wedding it was quite late so I decided to sleep on my plan in case I was being rash. When I woke up early on Sunday morning and still thought it was the best idea I’d ever had (totally eclipsing past highlights such as baked beans on cream cracker sandwiches and taping
EastEnders
while I watched it in case I thought of something clever to yell at the characters after it’s over), I knew I had to do it.

Coming up the escalator at Shepherd’s Bush tube I worked out my strategy for dealing with what was bound to be an impossible situation:

1. Go round to Mark and Julie’s.

2. Beg for her mercy.

3. If needs be, cry.

I didn’t give myself the option of steps one to three not working. There was no plan B, and without Julie there’d be no plan A. Julie was essential. It was then, as I stood on her doorstep, my heart racing wildly and my index finger hovering over the doorbell, that it occurred to me that this was about karma. I was being punished for the sins of my previous life, the telling of ex-girlfriends that I was dead, the half-truths to Mel and the skeletons in my cupboards. It was as if life had decided that if I really wanted true happiness I was going to have to pay for my indiscretions.

I rang the doorbell and waited.

When Julie finally came to the front door she was wearing nothing but her dressing gown. “What are
you
doing here?” she exclaimed.

I decided in the light of what Mel had said about Julie having some sort of crisis, that a delicate touch would be required. “Hello, Julie,” I replied as chirpily as possible. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk to you yesterday at the wedding, but by the time you came back from the loo my taxi had arrived.”

Julie fixed me with a menacing stare as if I were some horrible practical joke writ large. “Duffy,” she growled, “it’s eight o’clock on Sunday morning. It’s freezing cold out here and I haven’t got the patience or indeed the inclination to humor you. So I’ll say this: I don’t care that you didn’t speak to me yesterday because I don’t like you. I don’t care if I never see you again because I don’t like you. In fact I don’t care about you full stop because I’ve never liked you. So now we’ve got that sorted, what do you want?”

“Is Mark about?” I asked innocently. I was hoping that his presence might soften Julie up a bit.

She bristled instantly. I knew that bristle. It was the bristle Mel used to use on me when I was in her bad books, just as, it would appear, Mark was in Julie’s. “He’s in Los Angeles on a shoot,” she said sharply.
They’ve probably had a row about him going off around the world again,
I reasoned.
This is bound to be Julie’s big “crisis.” I’ll give them two simpering twenty-minute transatlantic phone calls and they’ll be back to their usual smug selves.

“He won’t be back in England for a few days,” she said, and then added, “Was it him you wanted to see?”

“No, Julie,” I said. “It’s you I came to see. I need your help.”

She was visibly shocked. All her facial expressions went into free fall. She looked very odd indeed. Then as quickly as the panic came it disappeared. “You don’t really expect me to persuade Mel to get back with you, do you?” She sighed dismissively. “Not even you can be that stupid, surely?”

I coughed uncomfortably. “I know we’ve not always seen eye to eye about everything, Julie, and I’m sorry about that. I’m also sorry about the time I was sick over your bathroom floor, I’m sorry that I’ve always been so rude about your dinner parties and I’m really sorry that I used to call you Nosferatu behind your back.”

“You called me Nosferatu?”

“Damn. I thought you knew. Well, now I’m really really sorry I called you Nosferatu. I’m sorry for just about everything, but please, I’m begging you for just ten minutes of your time while I explain what I need from you. Please.”

I studied Julie’s face to see how many points I’d scored in my favor. Judging by her posture (defensive) and her facial expression (overflowing with disdain) I reasoned it was a figure somewhere near, as they say in Eurovision circles, to nul points.

“No way, Duffy,” said Julie firmly. “Mel told me everything that you said to her at the wedding. And do you want to know what I advised her? I told her that she was mad to think that you were capable of growing up, let alone changing.”

I took a long deep breath and held it. I wasn’t going to breathe again until the impulse to commit manslaughter had passed, which it did surprisingly quickly as it finally dawned on me what this was all about. Julie was protecting Mel in the same way that I would’ve tried to protect Dan had someone like Julie wormed their way into his affections. I had to convince her that I was good for Mel. That I’d do anything to make her happy. I took another long, deep breath.

“Okay, Julie,” I said, pulling up my trousers at the thighs. There was only one person on earth for whom I’d normally do what I was about to do, and that was Mel. “You want me to beg, well, I’ll beg.” I got down on my knees, put my hands together as if in prayer and wailed at the top of my voice, “Pleeeeaaase!”

Julie’s first reaction was to check if the neighbors had started looking out yet (they hadn’t), her second was to look at me as if I’d lost the plot (which to all intents and purposes I had), and her third was to take great pleasure in exclaiming loudly, “No!”

“Please!

“No!”

“Please!”

By now the twitching-curtain brigade were out in full. Julie knew this. I knew this. It was just a matter of whose nerve would break first. She stepped back inside and slammed the door shut. Determined not to give up, I stood my ground and continued to yell at the top of my voice on Julie’s front doorstep.

“Julie! I know you’re still there and I’ll stay right here on your doorstep keeping your neighbors awake for as long as it takes for you to let me in and listen to me. I don’t care if you call the police. I really don’t care. Not anymore. So you see you’ve got two choices: let me in for five minutes and listen to what I’ve got to say, or have me carted away by the Old Bill and really give the neighbors something to talk about. Which is it to be?”

There followed a long silence in which I contemplated what a night in gaol would be like. It didn’t seem that bad in theory. The main thing that bothered me was that they’d take the laces out of my trainers. It always took me ages to lace up my trainers. Julie opened the door just as I’d decided that if I did get arrested I’d give my trainers to the desk sergeant for safekeeping rather than unlace them.

“Okay, okay,” she said wearily. “Come in. But you’ve got exactly five minutes and no more.”

She let me in and I followed her through to the lounge. The room seemed emptier somehow, less furniture.
Metropolitan minimalist chic a-go-go,
I commented to myself silently. Julie sat down on the sofa and rubbed her eyes. It was strange seeing her just-got-out-of-bed hair and and Clinique-free features, because although on the one hand she now really did remind me of one of the undead, on the other, for the first time ever she almost looked human. I decided to soften her up with flattery. “You look fantastic, Julie.”

“No I don’t,” she snapped. “I look hideous. It’s how people who have been woken up on a Sunday morning look. Don’t flatter me. Don’t make small talk. Tell me what it is you want and then disappear.”

“Okay, I’ll be straight with you. I’m trying to butter you up because I’ve got a huge favor to ask. There’s no reason in the world for you to do it other than that you’re the only person who can help me. Please. I don’t want to cry in your living room but I will if I have to.”

“What do you want?”

I outlined her role in the plan, although not the plan in its entirety. She listened, didn’t say anything one way or the other, and as soon as I’d finished looked just as unmoved as she had done before.

“Firstly,” said Julie, “it’s a ridiculous idea. Secondly, I don’t think anything can convince Mel to spend the rest of her life with you, and thirdly . . . no. A plain and simple no. In fact, let me put it this way. Not now. Not ever. Let me tell you, Mr. Duffy, you have put my best friend though hell. You weren’t the one who had to console her when she was falling apart when you first split up. You weren’t the one who had to watch your best friend get back together with the man you loathe most on earth. You weren’t the one who had to mop up the tears when she found out she was pregnant. Why? Because you’re never the one who has to clean up after the devastation you cause.”

“I know what you think of me,” I said, “but there’s another side of me, Julie. You’ve got to know that. I admit I’ve been selfish in the past, but I’ve changed.”

“You say that now,” said Julie passionately, “but what about in six months’ time? Men leave. That’s what they do. They get tired of what they’ve got and they get up and go.”

I was confused. This was more than a general “all men are crap, get a dog instead” speech. She sounded as if she was talking about something specific.

“I don’t get this, Julie. What are you trying to say?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Mel told me that you’re having a hard time at the minute. She wouldn’t tell me why. Is it something to do with Mark being in Los Angeles?”

“No.”

“Then what’s wrong? I know it’s not like me to show concern but if it’s serious—”

“Mark and I have split up, okay?” she said without looking at me. “He’s gone.”

I was stunned. It was worse than when I discovered at the age of eight that Father Christmas didn’t exist. At least then I still knew that I’d be getting presents from my mum, Father Christmas or no Father Christmas. But if the king and queen of togetherness couldn’t make their love work, what hope was there for mere mortals? No wonder Mel was unsure about getting together with me: not only had I provided her with enough doubt, she was also having to deal with the fact that everything she’d idealized about Julie and Mark had been broken in two. “I’m sorry, Julie. I really am. I had no idea.”

“Well, now you know. He moved out about a month ago. I told Mel not to tell you because I knew what you’d say. I know you used to think that Mark and I were smug. What was the phrase you used? Oh, I remember now. ‘Keeping up with the Mark and Julies.’ Bet you’re happy now.”

“No, I’m not, Julie. It’s crap when things fall apart. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I am sorry about you and Mark. Is there anything I can do?”

She shook her head.

I sat and watched her for a moment. A shadow of her usual venomous self, I found myself actually feeling sorry for her. As much as I’d derided Mark and Julie, I’d always thought that they were right for each other. I suddenly felt guilty sitting here asking her to help out my relationship when she was so obviously on the verge of falling apart.

“Listen,” I said, standing up, “I’d better go.”

She pointed at the door. “I think you’ll find that’s the way out.”

I wasn’t going to say anything, I was just going to get up and leave, but then I thought about Mel and what was at stake and I suddenly got angry. “There’s nothing I can do to get you and Mark back together. If there was I’d do it. But can’t you see that you’ve got the chance to help me and Mel? I know that I can’t change her mind if she’s doesn’t want me, but I can show her that I meant every word I said when I told her that I loved her.”

“I don’t believe in love.” Julie stood up in a bid to hasten my exit.

“Because Mark left you?”

“
Because
no one means anything they say anymore. Because everything is temporary. Because nothing lasts. Because that’s the way it is.” She looked over at me expectantly.

“It doesn’t have to be,” I said, meeting her gaze.

“I think you’ve had your five minutes.”

“Yeah,” I said, wondering what I was going to do now. “I suppose I have.”