My Legendary Girlfriend (24 page)

I marked Susie’s essay and gave her three out of twenty and wrote ‘See me’ in very large letters.

Turning to the back of Susie’s exercise book again, I found two blank pages and across the top of them in large sprawling capital letters I wrote the words, ‘
I WANT
 . . . ’

12.14 A.M.

Sunday

8.08 A.M.

My eyes cracked open and my head shuddered violently as the telephone yanked me into consciousness. Though still disorientated by sleep, I managed to reach down to the floor, locate the source of the noise by touch alone
and
flatulate silently, all before picking up the phone in the middle of its second ring. All the same, it took at least a minute or two of grunting and stretching before my brain, still some two laps behind my body, was able to catch up. Someone was talking to me, using words that I recognised to be English; now all I had to do was arrange them in some sort of order and I’d be able to have something roughly approximating a conversation.

‘Sorry I didn’t return your calls, Will. It’s just that . . .’

I didn’t recognise the voice.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ I said weakly, scratching my groin. ‘Just tell me who you are.’

‘It’s me, Alice.’

‘Oh yeah. Nice one,’ I said, confirming her statement. ‘What time is it?’

‘Ten past eight. Sunday morning.’

‘I’d heard the rumours, but I didn’t know such a time really existed, you know. Ten past eight: Sunday morning. Well I never.’

I finished my bout of primary school sarcasm and was about to go off on a surreal tangent about the various theories I’d been contemplating in recent weeks about time travel and the nature of reality, when Alice started to cry.

‘Oh, Alice, I’m sorry,’ I apologised. ‘I’m a git. Just ignore me.’

‘It’s not you,’ she said.

Holding the phone close to my ear, I slipped out of bed, opened the curtains and looked outside. It was raining. Next door’s dog had just finished his morning dump and was haphazardly flicking soil over the steaming deposit with its hind legs.

‘It’s Bruce,’ she said, between sobs. ‘He’s left me.’

I listened carefully as she explained what had happened. Bruce had arrived back at the flat on Saturday afternoon after supposedly being ‘at work’ and, cool as you like, announced that he was leaving Alice for another woman. After a lot of shouting and crying on Alice’s part, he was decent enough to admit that the other woman was, in fact, Angela, his project supervisor. When she’d asked how long it had been going on, he’d refused to say anything more than that he was moving out immediately and would be back to get the rest of his things. And that, as they say, was that. Five years of relationship demolished in under half an hour.

Armed with all the information, there should’ve been nothing stopping me from taking up the role of best friend and stalwart, as Alice had when Aggi had dumped me. The job of making her feel better was entirely my responsibility, but much to my shame I didn’t feel up to the task. Every sentence that came to my lips sounded either too stupid or insensitive – the sort of thing that would’ve worked wonders for someone like Martina but would be an insult to Alice. She deserved better than meaningless platitudes, but that was all I had in stock. She was my best friend and she was hurting and there wasn’t a word in the English language that could make it stop.

Still, clichés are clichés for a reason. They exist to fill in conversational gaps, to make the person who says them feel marginally less impotent than they are and most importantly of all, to cause as little further upset as possible. To this end I imagined what Barbara White would do in my situation. First off, I had to ask a great number of questions, no matter how obvious, to show that I cared.

‘Are you okay?’

‘No, I’m not okay, Will. I feel crushed. Completely crushed. I never thought this would happen to me. He said he loved me. He said he wanted to marry me. He said that he’d always love me. He lied. He lied.’ She began to cry again.

My mind remained blank. The spirit of Barbara White took control once more. ‘You must be pretty cut-up about it.’

‘I can’t believe he’s gone,’ said Alice oblivious to my inanity. ‘He’s gone. What am I going to do now? I haven’t done a thing since he left but cry. The cat’s crapped over the bathroom floor, I’m supposed to be preparing for a meeting with my senior manager tomorrow and I was going to paint the kitchen this afternoon too.’ She laughed sardonically. ‘I hate that sodding cat anyway. She always liked Bruce more than me.’

‘Perhaps she’ll like you more now he’s gone,’ I said sagely.

Alice began to cry again.

I abandoned Barbara White mode, as it wasn’t doing me or Alice any good. Instead I did what I should have done from the start: relied on my natural ability to tell It the way It is. ‘Y’see, Alice,’ I said crawling back into bed, ‘it’s like this: life is a load of old arse. Always has been and always will be.’ I felt cold. I pulled the duvet up to my neck. ‘I know how you feel. I do, I really do. There you are living life safe in the knowledge that the only thing that keeps you sane, the only thing that makes it all worthwhile is the person you love and then
vrooooooom!
, he clears off faster than the Tasmanian Devil with a rocket up his bum. And all that’s left to remind you he was ever part of your life is a pile of photos, a few letters and too many memories.’

Alice didn’t say anything. I didn’t know whose benefit my little speech was for, so I changed the subject.

‘Did you manage to sleep at all last night?’

‘No. I lay awake all night thinking and crying. I would’ve phoned you earlier but it was really late when I felt able to call.’

‘Look,’ I said gently, ‘you can phone me whenever you like. Morning, noon or night. It’s like Diana Ross once said, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”.’ I cleared my throat and presented her with my best impression of that former Supreme’s soul stirring hit.

‘Cheers,’ said Alice laughing. ‘You’re a mate.’ She paused as if catching her breath and then started crying again. ‘Why has he done this, Will? I met her, you know. We all went out for dinner when she gave him the promotion to her department. She was exceptionally nice to me too. All night she kept saying that we must go out together some time. She must be about forty-two but she’s really beautiful. She’s got her own personal trainer. I don’t know . . . what’s wrong with me? Why doesn’t Bruce love me any more? He must really worship her to do this to me after all the time we’ve been together. This kind of thing doesn’t happen overnight. How long has he felt things were wrong and not told me? How long has he been sleeping with her and then coming home to sleep with me?’ She broke down, violently sobbing into the phone. This was my closest friend, the only person in the world I could actually rely on, and there was nothing I could do or say to heal the pain. So we sat not speaking, wrapped in our own thoughts for close to an hour. Our connection via the telephone representing the closest two people can be when separated by 120 miles’ worth of fibre optic cable.

Next door’s dog began barking violently, waking me up from my trance-like state. I shook my head, trying to remember what I’d been thinking about in the time that had elapsed. I couldn’t remember. I thought perhaps I’d fallen asleep.

‘Hello?’ I called down the phone line. ‘Hello? Alice?’

‘Oh, Will!’ said Alice sleepily. ‘I just dreamt that Bruce was here with me. We were lying in bed, his arms wrapped tightly around my waist, and he kept kissing me gently on my neck and telling me that he loved me.’ She began crying again.

‘What time is he coming back?’ I asked, once her tears had subsided to a gentle whimper.

‘Some time this evening,’ she said. ‘He’s at her house now . . . wherever that is.’ I could tell it took all her strength to hold back another flood of tears, but she did it. ‘What can I do? I can’t take this any more. He’s just walking all over me and I feel like I can’t do anything to stop him. I feel so helpless.’

‘What do you want to do?’ I asked. ‘Do you want me to beat him up?’

‘Yes,’ she said bitterly.

‘Oh,’ I said, swallowing hard as I pictured all six foot, four inches of Bruce. ‘While it would give me the greatest pleasure to kick all kinds of crap out of Bruce on your behalf, I think you ought to take on board the fact that given my weak stature the letting of blood would be all mine.’ Alice laughed. ‘You’re my best friend though, so I’m quite prepared to bleed over his Armani suit for you. Anything to make you feel better.’

Alice became serious again. ‘I want him to hurt, Will. I want him to hurt as much as I do. He wouldn’t care if I started seeing someone else. It’d probably make things easier for him. I just want him to hurt like I hurt. I want him to feel my pain.’

It was up to me to make things all right. I felt like Hannibal from
The A-Team
. ‘So hit him where it hurts.’

‘I’d never get near enough to get a kick in,’ said Alice, only half joking.

Taking out my imaginary cigar, I shook my head and wondered if George Peppard had ever tried it on with Audrey Hepburn.

‘No, I don’t mean that,’ I said. ‘I mean destroy all that he holds dear. Exactly what time is he coming back?’

‘I don’t know. Around five maybe. I said I wouldn’t be in and I won’t. He’ll probably have that bitch waiting for him outside.’

‘Right,’ I said. I searched around on the floor for a pair of socks for my cold feet. ‘There you go, you’ve got plenty of time to have the locks changed and make him regret ever wanting to see his boss naked.’ The duvet slid off the bed as I made myself comfortable. The flat was freezing. The plug-in electric radiator by the front door was at least three feet too far away for me to consider it worth the effort of getting out of bed. I pulled the duvet back onto the bed, covering myself right up to my neck, relaxed and checked the details of my plan. ‘You’ve got a cordless phone, haven’t you?’

‘It’s what I’m talking to you on.’

‘Excellent,’ I said – which would’ve been sufficient in itself – but I couldn’t resist adding, ‘Let’s party.’ I smiled involuntarily, my body’s way of telling me that on my internal scale of attitude, I was much closer to corny than ironic. ‘Which room are you in right now?’

‘I’m in the sitting room.’

‘What can you see?’

‘The sitting room.’

‘No, I mean what can you
really
see?’

I listened to the rustle of Alice’s hair brushing against the receiver as she looked around the room. ‘A sofa, a TV, a pack of B&H, a coffee table, some magazines:
GQ
,
Marie Claire
,
The Economist
, a fish tank, a hi-fi . . .’

‘Stop right there,’ I interrupted. ‘Is it Bruce’s hi-fi?’

‘His pride and joy. One of those high tech jobs. Ludicrously expensive.’ She sounded distant. ‘It’s Bruce’s pride and joy.’ More tears were right around the corner.

‘Right. Pick it up!’ I shouted, hoping I could generate enough mystery to stop her thinking about Bruce.

‘Why?’

‘Just pick it up!’ I yelled. ‘Have you got it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take it to the bathroom.’

Alice made her journey to the bathroom in silence. All I could hear was a very faint buzz of static from the phone line.

‘Don’t walk!’ I commanded. ‘Run!’

‘I’m in the bathroom,’ said Alice breathlessly, after some moments. ‘This thing’s a bit bloody heavy. What shall I do now?’

Another involuntary smile spread across my face. ‘Put the hi-fi in the bath, put the plug in and turn on the tap.’

Alice laughed nervously.

‘You
are
joking?’

Yet another involuntary smile emerged because I desperately wanted to say, ‘No, I’m deadly serious.’

Fits of shrieking and laughter filled my ear drums.

‘Excellent,’ said Alice giggling. ‘Shall I add some Radox?’

The sound of running water and laughter seemed to be everywhere. As we waited for the bath to fill up, Alice reminded me that I’d promised to visit her this month. I said I’d love to but couldn’t afford it. She offered to pay for my train ticket. I was genuinely moved.

‘It’s full,’ shouted Alice excitedly.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s take a look at his clothes, shall we?’

‘I’m heading into the bedroom now!’ screamed Alice in full
Challenge Anneka
mode. ‘I’m opening his wardrobe. I can see his favourite jumper that he bought from Duffer of St George, a couple of hand-painted silk ties, two Agnes B shirts and three Armani suits.’