My Single Friend (2 page)

‘No problem,’ he mutters, frowning as he bends down. He hands me my new Kurt Geiger with a disconcerting look.

‘Ooh, and thanks for that too,’ I smile weakly, seizing it from his hand and shoving it on my foot.

But there’s something about his expression that tells me I’ve blown it again. That, new shoes or no new shoes, nothing will rescue me now.

‘It was a disaster of epic proportions,’ I declare.

‘I’m sure you’re exaggerating,’ says Henry.

‘I’m not. By the end of the night, the look on his face was
exactly
the same as Dermot’s.’

Henry looks at me blankly.

‘The property developer from before Christmas,’ I add.

‘Which one was he again?’

‘You know – the one who looked like a skinny Robbie Williams.’

Henry shakes his head, still baffled.

‘The one whose arm I dislocated doing my “YMCA” routine,’ I say reluctantly.

‘Ah. Well, The Village People always have had a lot to answer for.’

Despite the quip, I can’t help noticing Henry’s sympathetic look. It is a look with which I am tragically familiar.

‘Do you think you’re going to see him again?’ he ventures.

‘Not unless he has a bout of amnesia and forgets what a moron he went out with.’

‘It can’t
just
have been the thing with the shoes, surely,’ Henry says. ‘I mean, the thing with the shoes sounds quite bad, but . . . was that really it?’

‘The thing with the shoes qualifies as a high point,’ I reply. ‘It went downhill after that. The moment I realized I’d drunk too much to calm my nerves was probably the worst part.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘He told me I’d called him Shane all evening instead of Sean.’

Henry stifles a smile and reaches for the toaster. ‘Would you like another bagel?’

‘Why not?’ I say despondently. ‘I might as well be fat as well as miserable.’

Henry’s in his brown and orange velour dressing-gown, the one his mother bought him for Christmas. I can’t imagine where she found it, because I could shop the length and breadth of Britain and never stumble across anything so hideous.

I wish I could say it was a one-off, but unfortunately his mother still buys a lot of his clothes, despite him being twenty-eight. I’ve pointed out that this isn’t normal, but to no avail. Besides, the few clothes he picks out himself are as bad, if not worse: polo shirts that should be illegal for under-fifties, jeans that were only
de rigueur
among balding uncles in the early 1980s.

Not that this is important. Henry is the best friend anyone could hope for. As a flatmate, he’s excellent company, does more than his fair share of cleaning and always pays his rent on time (taking the pressure off me). More importantly, he’s loyal, above-averagely witty and I’ve cried on his shoulder so often over the years it’s a wonder he hasn’t invested in a raincoat.

Despite this, there is something about Henry that, no matter how much I love him, is undeniable: he’s a geek. A lovable, kind, couldn’t-live-without-him geek, but a geek all the same.

He puts the toasted bagel on a plate, butters it and places it in front of me. I take a large bite.

‘Haven’t you got any eligible friends at work?’ I ask, more in hope than expectation. ‘Someone you could tip off about my tendency to embarrass myself – but convince that I’m worth persevering with?’

He thinks for a second. ‘The only one who’s single is William Leitch, but I don’t think he’s your type.’

‘Why not?’ I ask defensively.

‘He’s sixty-three.’

I roll my eyes.

Henry shrugs. ‘Apart from that, there’s only me.’

I look up and catch his eye. We both collapse into giggles.

Despite the fact that I love the film
When Harry Met Sally
, I know from personal experience that its premise – that a relationship between a man and a woman is never purely platonic – is a load of tosh. I mean, look at us: Henry and I have known each other for nineteen years and in that entire time there hasn’t been a flicker of attraction between us.

Yet there isn’t a person on earth I adore more. He’s the intelligent, thoughtful, excellent-birthday-present-buying brother I always wanted – instead of Dave, who forgot for three years on the trot then made up for it with a hot-water bottle gift set. (I was born in July.) In short, I love Henry to bits. But I’d still never sleep with him, not if my life depended on it – and the feeling’s mutual.

‘I’ve already told you that I think you should just be yourself,’ he says. ‘You’d have more luck with men if you did. You need to relax and let them see The Real You.’

‘Don’t start on that again,’ I groan.

‘Think about Antony and Cleopatra and Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet,’ he continues. ‘And don’t forget Madame Bovary. Those women were loved passionately by their men – in spite of their flaws.’

This is a typical Henry comment. First, despite being a relatively short sentence, it contains not one but several literary references. Secondly, it betrays his idyllic, rose-tinted view of love – a view that’s largely theoretical as his hands-on experience with the opposite sex isn’t exactly extensive.

‘Those women weren’t real, Henry,’ I say. ‘They were fictional characters.’

‘Antony and Cleopatra were perfectly real,’ he replies, putting away the butter and loading my plate into the dishwasher.

‘Well, I know that,’ I mutter. ‘The point is, you’ll have to trust me on this one. These days, women are expected to outsmart Carol Vorderman, out-cook Nigella, and out-pout Penelope-bloody-Cruz – all at the same time.’

‘Out-pout?’ he smiles.

‘You know what I mean. Men don’t
really
want real women, Henry.’ I’m on a roll. ‘Not ones with unshaven legs, bags under their eyes and crusty, unpainted toenails.’

‘First of all, can I point out that
I am a man
.’

‘You’re
Henry
.’ I wave my hand dismissively.

‘Secondly,’ he continues, ignoring me, ‘I’m not saying that men don’t want women to look attractive. Obviously, that’s not the case. I’m saying there’s nothing wrong with not being perfect in every way.’

‘I’d settle for not being
im
perfect in every way.’

He flashes me a look. ‘Come off it, Lucy. You’re not that bad.’

‘Gee,thanks.’

‘When am I going to convince you? You don’t need to keep embellishing your personal CV.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I reply indignantly, knowing exactly what he means.

‘Lucy – you’re good enough as you are. There’s no need to try to make yourself sound more exotic or accomplished.’

‘I don’t,’ I say quietly.

‘Right – so you didn’t tell that chef a few months ago that you’d been a finalist on
Blockbusters
when you were in the sixth form?’

‘You’re always bringing that up,’ I say resentfully. ‘I did not
tell
him, he somehow . . . surmised it. I wasn’t going to be the one to shatter any illusions.’

He raises an eyebrow.

‘Until I sat on his soufflé, obviously.’

The day I met Henry isn’t one that I remember vividly. But Henry does, probably because he has a brain the size of Pluto, and I’ve heard his version of the event often.

He recalls the tiniest detail of our introduction, despite it having happened so long ago that every household in Britain owned a Rubik’s cube at the time.

I was in my fourth year in Kingsfield Primary School and Henry was the new boy. His parents, who were both professors, had transferred from their jobs in London to Liverpool University and the family was new in the city.

Henry was wheeled into our class and forced to stand at the front of the room while Miss Jameson introduced him to the other pupils. He tells me that that moment – when he, a glasses-wearing swot with a funny posh accent and freaky hair, had to stand in front of thirty streetwise city kids – was the most traumatic four minutes of his childhood.

Whether primary-school children can be as tough as Henry remembers is up for discussion. But there’s no doubt that he was immediately considered
different
. A stranger who was shy, sensitive, brainy and, worst of all, wore brown laceups that resembled under-cooked Cornish pasties – shoes no self-respecting nine-year-old should step out in. Not even after dark.

Henry says that after Miss Jameson’s rambling introduction, she turned to the class and beamed: ‘Now, children, who’ll volunteer to look after Henry for the day?’

A silence descended that was so deafening you could have heard pins drop in Devon. In that terrible moment, one thing was clear to everybody. To Miss Jameson, to Henry, to those rotten kids whose only excuse was that they were at an age when tribal instincts kick in furiously:
nobody was going to put up their hand
.

Then somebody piped up from row three.

‘Go on, Miss. I’ll do it.’

Henry says my voice was the thick-accented squeak he’d heard. When he looked up, dizzy with relief and gratitude, there I was, wonky-fringed and defiant.

‘You fancy him,’ sneered Andy Smith.

‘Shurrup or I’ll tell our Dave,’ I snapped. It was a threat I often issued, despite the fact that my brother reserved physical violence for just one person: me. Dave and I fought like rabid alley cats in those days – throwing each other downstairs, pulling hair, scratching and punching – so the prospect of him defending his little sister was as remote as a hamlet in the depths of the Amazon Basin.

‘Now, now, children!’ said Miss Jameson, clapping her hands. She didn’t have what you’d call a commanding presence, even with a bunch of nine-year-olds. ‘Well done, Lucy Tyler. Henry can take a seat next to you and you can show him the ropes at lunchtime.’

Henry shuffled to the desk and smiled. I frowned suspiciously.

‘Thanks,’ he said softly.

‘’S’all right,’ I replied. ‘Why’ja wear them soft glasses?’

The accent has been ironed out today. It hasn’t gone completely, and I haven’t tried to ditch it deliberately: I was brought up in a world where that would be the ultimate in pretentiousness. But after three years at St Andrew’s University and nearly eight in PR, I’ve got a voice that has prompted certain members of my extended family to accuse me of ‘going all posh’.

Anyway, despite not personally remembering the details of the day Henry and I met, I recall quickly feeling that he was somebody I both admired and wanted to protect.

Admired because, as well as turning out to be a great laugh, Henry knew the answers to
everything
. How many plates a Stegosaurus had, how volcanoes work, how to remember your times tables, plus a plethora of French swear words so choice they’d make a sailor blush.

There seemed to be no piece of knowledge Henry hadn’t acquired in his short life. Which was liberating – because I wanted to know the answers to everything. I never had a particularly natural intellect, not as vast and effortless as Henry’s, but I loved learning and knew that I wanted to do my best in life – to
be
the best I could. I was, and have always been, a tryer.

I’m digressing. Despite all this, Henry needed protecting from the Andy Smiths of this world, who entertained themselves by stealing his homework books and defacing his pencil case with Denise Gibbin’s
My Little Pony
stickers (she was one of those girls you just knew would grow up to be a lap dancer).

Eventually, years later, Henry gained a degree of acceptance among our contemporaries. This was thanks entirely to the fact that one of the many things at which he excelled was sport – and, at our school, if you were good at sport, you can’t have been all bad. So Henry got some positive attention for once, albeit as ‘that weird kid who’s shit-hot in midfield’.

What I knew that the others didn’t was that he was also hilariously funny when he wanted to be. Frustratingly, if they could have seen that, they’d have loved him. But his shyness prevented that and the class geek he remained.

As we grew up, I was aware that my close association with Henry put me at permanent risk of a catastrophic downturn in kudos. But there was never any question of ditching our friendship to placate the in-crowd. Being Henry’s friend felt as if I knew a secret nobody else did. I understood his magic and was luckier for it.

These days, Henry still gets the odd look that must take him back to that first day in Miss Jameson’s class. It’s not surprising. His glasses are abysmal. His dress sense wouldn’t make it onto the fashion pages of
Railway Enthusiasts Weekly
. And his hair, to be frank, looks as if it’s been attacked with a hedge-trimmer. But Henry doesn’t care. So why on earth should I?

‘How do you think it went?’ I am buzzing with adrenalin after one of my most important presentations ever.

‘I can’t believe you have to ask,’ replies Dominique, perching on my desk. ‘The panel couldn’t have been more convinced if we’d bent down and given each of them a blow job.’