Scratch (47 page)

***

‘Good weekend?’ Natalie asked with feigned innocence as she poured me a pint.

‘Yes, thank you. It was perfectly pleasant.’ I sat at the bar to wait for Paula.

‘Any … stories?’ Natalie’s eyebrows hiked up an inch and stayed there.

‘None I’ll be sharing with you, young lady.’

‘Aw, boring bastard. At least tell me you didn’t disappoint yourself. Did it all come back to you? Lucy and I were worried.’

Jesus, you’d think I’d been a monk before Paula came back, the way these guys went on.

‘
Like riding a bike
would be the wrong thing to say under the circumstances, but I think I did okay, yes.’

‘Good man, well done!’

‘Thanks for your support. Who you on with?’

‘Your co-manager’s in the back preparing for her triumphant return to active duty. There’s a ton of paperwork on the desk waiting for you already that she’s thoroughly enjoyed ignoring all weekend.’

‘Oh joy.’ Tomorrow was to be my first official day in my new position.

‘Hi, honey,’ Kate said, coming out of the office. She’d clearly been doing some serious work with her make-up bag, and looked great. I allowed myself a brief, objective assessment - nope, not a patch on Paula.

‘
Hiya
,’ I said.

‘So, how was it?’ Kate asked conspiratorially. ‘Is everything still working?’

‘Fuck off the lot of you,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t been
that
long.’

Natalie turned to Kate. ‘He
says
all systems were go, and they went.’

‘That’s good, Jim, I’m so happy for you.’ Kate wasn’t even being sarcastic, the patronising—

‘Sorry I’m late,’ Paula said, appearing next to me. ‘Mum had a million stories to tell me about the weekend.’

‘That’s more than your man here has,’ Natalie said. ‘He’s surprisingly discreet, for a guy.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Paula said, not
completely
serious.

‘Drink and a table?’ I said.

***

‘Did they have a good time, then?’ I asked when we’d sat down under
Gryff’s
watchful glass eyes.

‘Seem to have,’ Paula said. ‘Mum, anyway. Dad always pretends he’s not bothered, but I saw him smile to himself a few times when Mum was telling me what they got up to.’

‘A good weekend was had by all, then,’ I said.

‘It was.’ She smiled and sipped her wine. ‘Nice to see you’ve remembered how to speak.’

‘I know, sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what was wrong with me, I was so nervous.’

‘Why? It’s only me.’

‘
Only
you? It’s
because
it was you. I was so desperate not to fuck up that I couldn’t think of anything to say.’

‘So it’s not that you find my company boring, then?’ There was a fraction of a joke in her tone, but I don’t think it was quite half.

‘Fuck,
no
. You don’t think that, do you?’

‘You had me wondering, there. You expect awkward silences on a first date, not after a hundred and one.’

‘I know, I know,’ I said. ‘But it was the first, you know,
proper
date.’

‘So that accounts for Friday night. You weren’t exactly a chatter-mouth on Saturday and Sunday either.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ I did know, I just didn’t really know why. ‘The nerves didn’t go away, even after we’d …’

‘You’re allowed to say it, Jim. We are grown-ups now.’

I smiled. ‘After we’d … become reacquainted in an intimate way.’

‘
Jaysus
, you’re still nervous. Why?’

‘I don’t
know
,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand and it’s doing my nut in.’

‘You’re not the only one.’

I was getting worried. This wasn’t going to end up being an
issue
, was it? ‘This isn’t any old relationship, Paula; it’s
us
, you and me. That’s a fucking
huge
thing to me.’

‘Eh,
me too
,’ she said.

‘I know, sorry. It’s just, this is it for me, the big one, the rest of my life, till death is hopefully cured and doesn’t
do us part
. I’ve never opened myself up to that before.’

‘And what? Now you’re thinking you shouldn’t have?’

‘Christ, no.’ I was
rubbish
at this. ‘The total opposite. I’m loving it, I can’t wait for it to be
the rest of our lives
; I can’t wait to meet Taylor and Sam; I want us to get a flat tomorrow - I know we can’t, but I want us to.’

‘So what’s the problem? I want all that, too.’

‘I know you do, and there isn’t a
problem
. I’m just, I think, because I’ve never really got to that stage before, I’m terrified of messing it up. Remember I said to you the worst thing you can say to a guy is
say something
? That it makes us go blank?’

‘It makes
you
go blank,’ Paula said. ‘I remember that, yes.’

‘Well, that’s how I felt all weekend. Like someone said
say something
to me in a big, scary voice. Not just
say something
, but
say something now or ruin your hopes for a happy future with the woman you love forever
. And I know
you
didn’t, and wouldn’t ever, say that to me. The fucked up thing is
I
was saying it to myself.
Over and over I kept telling myself to speak, to say something funny, to tell a story, make a joke, to
say something
. And so, because I’m an emotionally retarded wanker, I clammed-up completely and couldn’t think of a single fucking word. I’m really sorry.’

Paula shook her head at me (in a good way, for once). ‘Jim Cooper, you are, you
really
still are, the biggest wanker I’ve ever met in my life.’

‘Eh, thanks?’

She reached over and held my hand - above the table, in full public view. Then she brought her other arm forward and held my other hand, squeezing both tight. She pulled me towards her and kissed me - on the lips, not the nose (I swear I heard an
awww
come from behind the bar).

Paula pulled back a couple of inches and gazed at me with
those
eyes.

‘You need to get over all that shite, you know,’ she said.

‘I know, I’ll work on it, I promise.’

‘See that you do, mister. My kids are going to need a daddy who talks to them. I’ll be teaching people to speak at work all day, so you’re doing the heavy lifting at home.’

‘Fine by me,’ I said. ‘As long as you keep me right with the grammar.’

***

If this
was
a film, and I
was
the hero, that would be the perfect place for the end credits to roll and the soppy music to start.

Chapter 27

But, not a film, not a hero.

Happily ever after
is probably the single biggest lie ever perpetrated on the world (possibly
pipped
by
Freedom through Democracy)
. Real life doesn’t end until it
ends
, and the only personal experience I have of a genuine case of
happily ever after
is my own grandad, or Papa, as I called him.

Papa got up one morning several years ago, had a breakfast he thoroughly enjoyed, spent the morning laughing with his family, ate his favourite lunch of skinless sausages and beans watching
Going for Gold
, and died peacefully and painlessly in his chair as
Countdown
started that afternoon.

On that morning, for that wonderful man,
happily ever after
would have been appropriate.

For the rest of us, we need to wait for the final whistle.

There were still numerous problems facing Paula and me. Chief among them in the days following that glorious, if tongue-tied, weekend, was that we both still lived with our parents, and neither pair knew about our relationship.

We had acknowledged that Simon almost certainly had a fair idea, but that didn’t mean Paula was ready to admit it. If only for her mum’s sake she was determined to allow a respectable amount of time to pass following the death of her marriage before she publicly ‘moved on’.

As far as my own parents were concerned, I didn’t have much of an issue either way. I didn’t tell them because it might make things awkward until Paula had told hers, but it wasn’t that big a deal.

What this meant for us in practical terms, unfortunately, was that there could be no repeat of our ‘intimate re-acquaintance’ (had I actually said that?) until one of us had an empty again. We
could
have gone to Sammy’s or Andrea’s, even Terry’s (God forbid), but,
yeeuch
. Neither of us felt any desire to bunk up on someone’s couch, worrying about what might be heard through the wall by nosy ears as we fumbled in the dark, terrified our host might decide they wanted a drink of water. We
had
grown up, a bit.

So we were back to scratch again. Meeting up in secret, if not quite
so
secret. Okay, we allowed ourselves to move past the nose (or rather below it) when we kissed goodnight, but that quickly began to feel like scant consolation.

Another troublesome point for me, if not so much for Paula, was that bloody Ingo was still phoning her every other day.

‘What was he saying today?’ I said. We were in The Brooklyn having lunch.

‘
Isaak’s
taken a turn for the worse,’ Paula said, either not noticing or choosing to ignore my tone. ‘It’s not looking good, apparently.’

‘Bummer.’

‘Yeah, very sympathetic, Jim.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You keep saying you want me to tell you everything, but when I do you turn into a grumpy
fecker
. You can’t have it both ways.’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t know, after the other week it feels like something should have changed, and it kind of hasn’t.’

‘It’s only time, Jim. It passes. It won’t be long.’

‘It’s starting to feel long.’

‘I can’t help that.’

‘Has he asked you?’ I said.

‘Asked me what?’

‘If there’s anyone else.’

Paula paused and looked down at the table.

‘He has, hasn’t he? And you lied.’

‘I couldn’t tell him, Jim. I’ve already told you that.’

‘You said you couldn’t tell him; you didn’t say you’d lie to him if he asked. You say you want to be his friend and I understand that, but if you’re lying to him you’re not being his friend. Friends don’t lie to each other.’

‘It’s not that simple.’ Paula was getting angry. The vastly increased volume and filthy look gave it away.

‘It should be.’

‘Well it isn’t.’ Volume and look admirably maintained.