Terms & Conditions (10 page)

She seemed confused and I explained, ‘Um . . .
2001
, I was at the same showing.'

She wiped her tears and smiled, ‘The film was wonderful, my life's the problem.'

After I bought her another beer, the story came out. She'd been kicked out of home. Her parents' Born Again Christian phase clashing with her Born Again Rebel phase. She had a great degree but no job prospects. She told me she wanted to do something useful with her life, make a difference. She's the only person that's said that to me without sounding deeply insincere. At closing time I asked if she had anywhere to go.

She said, ‘Well, Sandra, and her mum, Molly, always put me up, but I just feel like such a failure running back there again.'

From that moment my heart opened up and took Alice into it and there she stayed. She was so honest; there she sat, in a cardigan and sneakers, telling a stranger the truth.

When we arrived at the flat, the door opened and there was Molly with huge white hair hovering above her head like a Chinese lantern.

Molly wrapped her arms around Alice, saying, ‘Sweetheart?'

‘Mum and I had another fight.'

Molly said, ‘Well, that's bad news. Come on in, your bed's still made up from last time. Oh, and who's this?'

‘This is Frank,' said Alice. ‘He's a friend of mine.'

‘Well,' said Molly. ‘Do you like mushroom soup, Frank?'*

* As it was the first thing I was going to say to Molly, I didn't want to say something negative.

So I said, ‘I love it.'*

* When, in fact, I loathe it.

This resulted in Molly cooking me mushroom soup every time I went round.

Alice's friend Sandra joined us in the kitchen, kissing Alice and saying hello to me. Sandra had an interesting face, not beautiful but noble. Her nose was incredible. Large but delicate and the end was made up of so many wonderful angles that it looked less like flesh and more like glass. Alice didn't speak about her parents at first; instead we sat and talked about
2001
and Molly admitted she didn't understand a blinking word of it.

I explained, ‘It's a statement about man, God, technology . . . man's fight to overcome time and . . .' I faltered. All three women were staring at me seriously, waiting, and I said, ‘Actually, Molly, I've no idea either, it just looks pretty.' They laughed at me.

The kitchen was covered in mosaics, and when Molly saw I was looking, she said, ‘Love broken crockery, love using broken stuff to make beautiful stuff.' The shattered mosaic formed childish blue and silver clouds swirling across the walls.

After a little more wine, the topic of Alice's argument with her parents was teased out by Molly, who kept saying things like, ‘You don't have to talk about it, love, but sometimes it helps to get these things off your chest.'

What was funny was that Alice was reluctant at first and when she finally did open up, her story had shifted a little. But she was so bashful about it that we all laughed when Alice finally said, ‘Well, so, they didn't really kick me out, Molly. I . . . Well, I think I sort of pushed all their buttons and, come to think of it, technically, now that I
really
think about it, I suppose, to be honest, I may actually have stormed out.'

Alice sighed as if releasing the slight pressure that had built around the white lie, and Molly rubbed her shoulder and said, ‘There we go, that's good, Alice. That's fine. We all storm out of places from time to time.'

‘Poor Mum and Dad,' said Alice. ‘I really put them through hell sometimes.'

‘Yes, you have to be so careful with parents,' I said. ‘You only get one set and you have to try not to wear them out too fast.'

This got a laugh from the girls and their laughter made me feel wonderful. I remembered Sandra winked at me at that moment, I'll never forget it.*

* It wasn't a flirty wink; it was just a wink that said,
Nice one, Frank
. That's all it was, friendly, an encouragement. It was Sandra saying,
You're doing a good job cheering up my friend
. It seemed such a generous thing to give me, this stranger sitting with her best friend. How lame words are when you put them against a split-second gesture like that.

When I left, Alice gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, ‘Sorry I'm in such a state, I'm not usually like this,' and before I could say anything, she added, ‘Actually, I'm always like this.'

I wanted to say, ‘
I love you, Alice
.'

Instead I said something far less memorable but thought,
How can I get her to fall in love with me?
Most of the love falling took place right there in Molly's shattered kitchen.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF MUSHROOM SOUP

Mushroom soup makes me lie.

Waiting for Alice one day, Molly asked me, ‘When are you making your move, Frank?'

‘Where am I moving to?' I asked.

‘The move between you and Alice, dummy. Week in, week out, you come here, have tea with us, take Alice out, bring her back, nothing happens. I mean, I love you coming over, but trust me when I say a flower like Alice'll be picked soon enough. Fancy some mushroom soup?'

Sandra said, ‘Stop giving Frank a hard time, Mum.'

‘I'm merely asking him when he's going to make a move,' said Molly. ‘
Make a move
, is that what you call it these days?'

‘The Fonz calls it that, Mum,' said Sandra, with great irritation.

‘Well, however you want to put it. I was just helping Frank along.' Molly served soup and said, ‘You're the middle child, aren't you, Frank? Lost in the centre of it all, neither the first joyful surprise nor the last lovely baby. Eager to please. One who lets politeness rule your life. If you don't actually tell people what you really think, your life'll be a misery.'

She looked at me for a reaction. I looked deep into my mushroom soup for an escape.*

* Her pop psychology wasn't just embarrassing, it was also accurate.

She sighed and said, ‘How's the soup?'

‘Lovely,' I lied.

‘Jesus, Frank,' said Sandra. ‘Tell Mum you hate it. Alice told me you told her you hate mushrooms! Just tell Mum you hate it.'

Molly looked upset as she said, ‘Is that true, Frank?'

‘Actually . . . Molly, sorry, I hate it but, if it helps, I'm getting used to it . . .'

‘Stop eating it, Frank!' said Sandra, laughing. ‘You're still eating it as you're telling Mum you hate it. You're hopeless.'

Molly shook her head. ‘You're a lost cause, Frank. You'd apologise to your torturer for splattering blood on his shirt.'*

* By the way, I hope Molly is not coming over as too much of a wise old woman. She was also a belligerent drunk and had a terrible habit of farting and blaming me for it. But I don't want to be mean; she was also a lovely woman (when she wasn't drinking or farting, that is).

Later that day Alice did exactly what I'd failed to muster the courage to do: she faced me, kissed me, and that was that. We were together.

I loved Alice for all her messiness. Felt privileged knowing her. Back then she was everything I didn't have the nerve to be. Living by her wits, taking part-time jobs, her highs so much higher, her lows so much lower than the meandering stroll of my own life. That Alice, that bewildering, thrilling Alice, that's the Alice I fell in love with, that's the Alice I miss, that's the Alice I pine for when I look across the table and see my wife.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF SIGN LANGUAGE

In the right hands it can be a martial art. And Alice was a black belt.

Initially Alice and I understood each other implicitly. We shared codes, telepathy, empathy and understanding. Such was our bond that Sandra named us
the twins
.

When we started to go out I was at the peak of my brilliance. I'd won Shaw&Sons lots of new business and I'd also been responsible for writing contracts which were so well respected that they became the industry standard. Around that time Oscar was forever shouting, ‘You'll make partner in no time, buddy.' (Funny how
no time
turned out to be never.)

But where I was brilliant at work life, Alice was brilliant at real life. Her wit was wild and untamed, and she combined it with a social bravery that at times left me breathless.

On one of our first dates a man barged in front of us in the queue to a club.

Of course I did what I always did, which was mumbled indignantly –
but inaudibly
– ‘My God, that's so bloody rude.'

Th inking that was the end of that. But then Alice thumped the man on the back.

He swung around and shouted, ‘What the fuck? Got something to say?'

I, of course, had nothing to say and assumed Alice was as terrified as I was.

The man shouted, ‘Well?'

Alice held her tongue but let her feet do the talking – she kicked him sharply in the shin.*

* Now every man knows that the terms and conditions of this situation are explicitly clear. If your girlfriend starts a fight with a man, then you – the innocent boyfriend – will end the fight. Usually with your face being smashed like a plate.

With this in mind I grabbed Alice in order to run away but the man raised both his hands to stop us moving and shouted, ‘Fucking bitch.'

People were watching us now, and metres away at the door of the club the bouncers sensed violence; the queue twitched and writhed, warning them to come quickly. But I knew a punch to my face would arrive faster than a couple of slow-moving bouncers. And just as I saw the situation collapse – imagining myself spitting out my own teeth – Alice did something so absurd that the man actually froze mid-punch.

Alice made a gurgling noise in her throat and started to use sign language, pointing to her ears then her mouth, furiously spinning her hands around to signal that she was deaf, punctuating the air with peace signs to stop him hitting me.

It was so outrageous that – just for a second – the man dropped his fist and said, ‘What!' buying enough precious time to save me.

Alice gave one more fantastical display of utterly made-up sign language.* But – cringe-factor aside – she still saved my life (or at least she saved me a big dental bill).

* If political incorrectness were illegal, there's no doubt Alice would have been busted.

Thankfully the bouncers finally appeared, grabbing both the man's arms and dragging him off. Straining against their grip, the baffled man shouted, ‘Wait! Stop! She assaulted
me
! She did! That dumb bitch!'

To which Alice shouted back loudly and clearly, ‘I'm deaf, not dumb, you prick! Now fuck off and go learn some manners.'

Hearing Alice suddenly talk caused the man to fall mute. It also won a shocked giggle from our small audience, and people in the queue gave Alice a celebratory round of applause, to which she bowed and said, ‘Thank you, thank you. Hope you enjoyed the show. I'll be here all week, please tell your friends.'

I'm deaf, not dumb, you prick! Now fuck off and go learn some manners.

That was my Alice – dangerous, fast-witted and with just a pinch of mean stirred into a whole lot of wonderful.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF BREAKING UP

Against all anecdotal and statistical evidence, marriage remains surprisingly popular.

When did my wife break our marriage terms?

I remember one night in the car, escaping from another boring dinner, my eyes sore from staring, my hand mildly crushed, I said, ‘Wow! That guy Phil's a prick. What's with these guys you work with? All they talk about is mergers and acquisitions, like little corporate gods, when they're just accountants and abacus monkeys.'

I laughed. That's what you do when you make a little joke.*

* And the terms stipulate that your wife laughs too and says something like, ‘I know – what a doofus.'

She didn't.

Instead she was silent for a long time, then she said slowly, as if talking to a child, ‘They're my colleagues, brilliant men and women. Show them some respect, Frank.'

That's when I knew.

I knew everything had changed.

Inside and out, from her hair to her soul, all of it cut, straightened and dyed black. From that point on our terms were null and void. My wife became the most determined corporate climber. She climbed so high and so hard her calf muscles actually became more toned (though that may have been the cycling).

So there I stood at dull corporate dinners, looking and sounding interested. When all I wanted to do was kill myself.*

* You can't tell people that though.*
¹

*
¹
They'll think you want to kill yourself.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Subject: ‘Dam Pizza

Frank – hi!

Remember that time we were in Amsterdam?

So stoned, so hungry we decided to call out for pizza but, as I picked up the phone, you suddenly said, ‘No, wait, wait, that's far too obvious. We won't call out for pizza; let's wait for the pizza people to call us.'

Suffice it to say we were generally disappointed by the pizza people's complete lack of effort.

Love and munchies,

Malc

PS I am not sure if you know this, but emails work both ways. How do I explain this? I guess the best thing to do is to think about it like a two-way street: I send you emails but you can also send emails back to me. It's a brilliant new technology; you should try it some time.

PPS Sorry, that's just my facetious way of saying –
Write to me, Frank! What the fuck's going on in your life?

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF WHITE

It's not a colour – it's a shade.

When things were particularly bad between us, my wife decided we needed a fresh start. In her world this meant the two of us painting the flat together: a ‘bonding project' she called it. Which meant replacing white with a slightly different shade of white. (It didn't freshen the flat and it certainly didn't help our relationship.) Instead of painting over the cracks, it merely highlighted them. Preposterous though it may sound, we actually spent – wasted! – two whole weeks deciding – arguing! – about what type of white to paint the already white flat.