The Importance of Being a Bachelor (3 page)

‘Us-ness? That’s not even a word!’

A cheesy smile spread across Luke’s face like he had just won a hundred pounds on a scratch card. ‘Isn’t it? Well it is now!’

Luke wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole. What was wrong with him? Why was he acting like an overgrown schoolgirl? As Cassie began telling him about an earlier conversation that she’d had with her sister, Luke tried to work out what was going on inside his brain and came to the conclusion that he was grateful. Not just ordinary everyday grateful but rather a big-grin-on-your-face, chest-puffed-out, walking-on-air kind of grateful. Appreciating the things that you have rather than the things that you want to have is not a particularly male trait and Luke was well aware of this. In general men aren’t given to moments of needless reflection. If things were going OK you might occasionally want to give yourself a mental thumbs-up sign, or spend a moment too long grinning at yourself in the mirror, or even occasionally close your eyes and raise a right hand for a symbolic high five. What you didn’t do was sit in a swanky city-centre Spanish restaurant on a Saturday night trembling with emotion as you stared at your girlfriend of eighteen months wondering what on earth you had done to be this lucky.

‘I love you, you know,’ said Cassie, raising her glass for Luke to clink. ‘I love you more than anything in the world.’

‘I love you too,’ said Luke.

There was a silence. Luke wondered if he ought to have offered more than a simple ‘I love you’ in return. Women liked it when you started getting into stuff a bit more deeply, didn’t they? They liked it when you said more than the bare minimum. He thought about telling her how grateful he was having her in his life. He thought about telling her about the difference that she made to his day, the thrill he still felt whenever he walked down the street holding her hand knowing that every guy who saw them together would know that he was her boyfriend. He thought about all this and more but of course he didn’t say any of it because the words just wouldn’t come. He’d never been great with words, at least not in a smooth way like his older brother Adam or in a sensitive this-is-how-I’m feeling way like his kid brother Russell. Even at work, when he was one hundred per cent in his own element and all he had to do was present the outlines of his contribution to a big engineering project, it still felt as though every word was a boulder that he had had to cough up from the depths of his belly. If he reacted like that outlining engineering reports then how was he supposed to be when it came to talking about love?

‘Eighteen months,’ said Cassie. ‘It doesn’t feel anything like eighteen months does it?’

‘More like two.’

‘That’s so sweet of you.’

Luke shrugged. He felt deceitful for giving Cassie the impression that that was the best he could do. There was more. Lots more. And it wanted to emerge, to be free and out in the open right now. In his thirty-four years alive he had only had this feeling once before and that had ended in disaster. Perhaps that was why he was trying to hang on to the words:he was desperately trying to keep history from repeating itself.

‘What can you remember about our first date?’ asked Cassie.

‘Everything.’ Luke was deliberately succinct. ‘How about you?’

‘Oi Bachelor!’ laughed Cassie. ‘I see what you’re doing! I want the detail, mister. I want to know everything that you remember. And I mean everything!’

It had been an ordinary Friday night eighteen months earlier and Luke had been drinking in a town bar with some workmates. The bar was throbbing with pent-up ‘it’s-the-weekend’ energy and seating was at a premium. People began to peel off to go home or get some food and soon Luke soon found himself on one side of a table on his own. Just as he had been planning to call it a day he’d received a text from Russell, asking whether he could borrow his car for a couple of hours to run some errands. Luke had replied that was fine as long as Russell remembered to put in petrol this time otherwise he would be forced to give him a severe beating and he had just been about to press send when he sensed that he was no longer alone and had looked up to see Cassie standing over him asking if the seats opposite were taken.

Luke had been so thrown by the sight of this amazing woman that he forgot to answer her question and just stared. He managed to regain his composure long enough to invite her to sit down. As Luke realised he no longer wanted to go home, he typed a new text message to his brother: ‘£100 and car for a week if get down to the Ha Ha Bar Room in 30.’ Luke pressed send and looked up at Cassie: ‘I’m just waiting for a friend,’ he said. ‘Looks like he’s running late.’

‘And do you remember how all we did that night was talk?’ laughed Cassie as she joined in with the story. ‘We just talked and talked and talked and talked. I’d never met anyone like you in my entire life.’

‘My favourite moment was when Russ turned up.’ Luke grinned. ‘He looked a right mess. There he was in a bar full of suits like some kind of overgrown student.’

‘He didn’t!’ protested Cassie.’He looked really cool.’

‘No, he looked like an idiot. The kind of daft fashion victim that populates record shops – which was in fact where he was working at the time – and who could have ruined my chances of getting the phone number of the young thing I was giving the full-on Bachelor treatment to!’

‘But making out you didn’t even know him was a bit cruel!’

‘It would’ve been more cruel to have spoken to him because if he had ruined things between you and me I would’ve had no choice but to take him outside and pummel him. Anyway, he got his hundred quid and my car and he still managed to return it without any bloody petrol!’

They both smiled as they recalled the events of that night. This is what happiness feels like, thought Luke. The feeling that some people spend their whole lives looking for and never find.

He sneaked an unsteady hand across the table, nearly knocking over Cassie’s wine in the process, and lifted up her fingers until they were intertwined with his own.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’ve had something on my mind ever since we sat down tonight and I’ve been trying to find a way to express it but I keep hitting a brick wall. I wish you could just climb into my head and know what I feel without me having to say. How great would that be? Not having to put stuff into words?’

‘I do know,’ said Cassie. ‘I really do.’

‘Well do you know that right now if I had a ring I would ask you to marry me?’

Cassie nodded. ‘And did you know that ring or no ring were you to ask me the answer would be yes?’

‘In that case I’m asking you to marry me,’ said Luke.

‘And in that case I’m saying yes.’

‘Filed away on my SIM card.’

It was the morning of the following day, a Sunday, and a barefoot Adam was standing on his front doorstep waving to the minicab driver currently pulled up over his front drive.

‘She’ll be with you in a minute, mate!’ he called as the driver wound down his window. ‘She’s just getting her things together.’

The minicab driver nodded and Adam returned indoors, picked up the mug of tea from the table in the hallway and took a sip. She made good tea. Nice and strong. No sugar. Not too much milk. He swished it around his mouth a bit as though it was mouthwash and was about to swallow when she appeared at the top of the stairs.

‘This is a nightmare,’ she said. ‘I can’t seem to find my other shoe.’

‘Have you checked the bedroom?’

She nodded. ‘And the bathroom. You couldn’t be a love and check downstairs for me?’

Heading into the kitchen Adam dropped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster and gave the room a quick scan before heading to the living room. He spotted the missing footwear – a gold high-heeled sandal – almost immediately as it was sitting on top of the coffee table in the middle of the room. He picked it up, smiled as he recalled the manner in which it had been abandoned and then called out that he had found it.

‘You’re a life saver!’ She slipped on the shoe like a latter-day Cinderella and smoothed down the creases of her gold lamé minidress. ‘Right then, I’d better be off.’ She put her arms round his waist, kissed him and gave him a cheeky wink. ‘So, you’ve got my number?’

Adam nodded. ‘Filed away on my SIM card.’

‘Good.’ She kissed him again. ‘Don’t wait too long to text me.’

‘Make a lady wait? Wouldn’t dream of it.’

The girl picked up her expensive-looking designer bag from the sofa and left the room. Adam followed, picking up his tea on the way.

Adam stood on the doorstep and watched as she tottered down the drive and into the back of a silver Toyota Corolla. As the car pulled off Adam offered a final wave and then closed his eyes, turned his face towards the morning sun and savoured the sensation of the warmth on his face. This is the last time, he told himself, the very last time.

In essence, he reasoned as he returned inside and closed his front door, it had been his friends’ fault. All that talk of him being the least likely person to get hitched had provoked a lot of soul-searching when he should simply have been enjoying himself at the wedding. In truth Adam was actually quite worried that his friends were right. He had indeed spent too long chasing the wrong kind of girl and in the process had turned his whole life into one big fat men’s magazine cliché. After all here he was, a devastatingly good-looking, solvent, single man in his mid-thirties who also happened to be the owner of one of the coolest bars in south Manchester. The kinds of women he liked were indeed ones that most mere mortals couldn’t get within a few feet of without being tackled to the ground by security guards. And going out with them meant that he was part of an exclusive club featuring premier league football players, top name DJs and the odd younger member of the cast of
Coronation Street
. Really, it didn’t get any more exclusive than that. As for the women themselves Adam’s libido had a kind of mental checklist that it constantly and unconsciously referred to. Great face? Check. Long legs? Check. Tanned (fake or otherwise, he wasn’t fussy)? Check. Ridiculously tight minidress that showed off every asset? Check and bingo! In short Adam liked his women to be as flashy, sexually attractive and downright head-turning as it was humanly possible to be.

Now granted that Ameee (she had insisted that it was spelled with three ‘e’s) wasn’t up to Adam’s usual standard but as he had stood at the bar with his mates searching his soul and wondering exactly when his life had become this superficial he found himself making eye contact with an amazing-looking blonde in a spangly gold minidress who had the longest tanned legs he had seen in quite a while. Presented with the dilemma of confirming his friends’ prejudices or refuting them Adam went on to automatic pilot. He walked over to the girl, dazzled her with his best sales talk and just after midnight hopped into the back of a cab with her. The rest had been depressingly inevitable.

Adam plucked his long since popped-up toast out of the toaster, slapped a large wedge of butter on each slice and headed back into the living room. For a while he sat on the edge of the sofa, intermittently chewing his toast and slurping his tea, while he stared at the fireplace thinking about everything and nothing until an idea suddenly presented itself. Adam began searching the room first for some paper (in the end he had to settle for the back of the envelope that his latest gas bill had arrived in) and then for a pen (in fact a stubby IKEA pencil that he found down the side of the sofa) and then began writing. At the top of his envelope he wrote the following:

things i should be looking for in the right kind of woman

 1. Must have read at least one book in the previous month.

 2. Must be no prettier than a solid eight out of ten.

 3. Must not consider sleeping with me until after first date.

 4. Must have a career of some kind (this excludes ALL models and actresses).

 5. Must want to start a family.

 6. Must be able to cook without use of microwave.

 7. Must be able to hold a conversation.

 8. Would be nice if she had a sense of humour (though not compulsory).

 9. Must not have been sick through overindulgence in the last three years.

10. Must occasionally like doing cultural stuff.

11. Must be over thirty (preferably over thirty-five).

12. Would ideally be a non-cat owner (but given item eleven am prepared to be flexible on this one).

13. Must not be currently seeing a therapist.

14. Must not possess more than a moderate belief in complementary medicine . . .

15. Or astrology.

16. Must like me.

Adam looked over the list. This was it. This was brilliant. Everything that he wanted in the right kind of woman together with the perfect method of weeding out the wrong kind. Just to double-check his list’s brilliance Adam decided to score Ameee with the three ‘e’s against it and was pleased to discover that she would have scored a very poor three out of sixteen and been sent packing. Adam then did the same for his last three conquests (a one-time glamour model, the ex-girlfriend of a former Liverpool defender, and a former
Big Brother
contestant) and was delighted to see that they too would have been weeded out.