This is a Love Story (13 page)

cigarette. She quickly swished her head in the other direction, layers of shining hair flying through the air.

Jesus, it was like Sixth Form. Men never grow up. Fact. Yeah, she was gorgeous, had legs that went on forever and probably

kissed like a fallen angel, but there was only one thing I wanted. Sienna.

‘Here you go, pal, get this down your neck.’ Ross was back with a tray of shots, the neon-green liquid on the verge of spilling

over the lip of the glasses.

I was drinking hideous amounts of alcohol, very quickly. Half of me thought I should stop, the other half wanted to continue, so I

went with the latter. I threw it down my neck, wiping the viscous liquid from my fingers onto my jeans.

‘Look, guys. This isn’t funny. It’s getting to me. Should I get a new job? Cut her out? Leave the country?’ I was being dramatic

now, but it was necessary to get their attention.

Silence descended on the group. Ross leaned back, his lumberjack shirt pulling at the middle where the buttons were. He had

been working out lately and was starting to resemble a wrestler. ‘OK, how do you feel about her?’ he said, a lot more serious this

time.

This was awkward for a pack of drunken men. Feelings had come to the table – real, raw feelings. My feelings. It was terrifying,

but I had consumed enough alcohol to be able to spill the beans. They knew I was a soppy git now anyway, so there was no point

trying to claw back my floundering reputation.

‘She’s perfection. I’ve never felt like this. I can’t imagine anything I want more than having her by my side every day. It actually

scares me.’

‘Well, you need to tell her, dude – but properly tell her. As in don’t tell her comatose father, yeah?’ said Simon, pushing his

glasses up his nose.

‘Ross. When you met Sarah . . . How did you know you loved her? How did you know she was . . . well, the one?’ I turned my

gaze towards my best friend, hoping I could find the answers behind the thick veil of his drunken stupor.

The alpha male shuffled awkwardly and paused for a moment. He knew that I knew he was a secret ball of goo. I’d never told the

lads that I walked in on him sitting in his underpants, writing a poem for his wife with Ronan Keating on in the background just a

few months ago. I’ve certainly learned that I should knock from now on . . . It had remained a secret between us, and it was my

greatest weapon when his piss-taking reached annoying levels. A simple pen movement with my right hand was enough to shut him

up.

‘Well, er . . . I just knew, I guess,’ he responded quietly, running his index finger around the top of his pint.

‘What do you mean, just knew?’ asked Simon. He was clearly fascinated by this too.

‘I just felt like everything was right with her, and the thought of being without her made me feel totally lost,’ he finished, opening

out his hands on the wooden table. ‘It’s just a gut feeling, you can’t really explain it.’ His big bear-like features softened and he

smiled from ear to ear.

‘Well, that’s how I feel about Sienna,’ I said bluntly. ‘But then again, the fact that she kept that secret from me for so long is a bad

sign. She can’t feel the same, there’s just no way. Then I face the humiliation of my office and the loss of a great friendship . . .’

‘Friendship, my arse,’ Ross blurted out. ‘Guys and girls are never just friends, not like you two are anyway. There’s always one

person who wants to jump the other one,’ he continued, like some kind of love guru in a pub garden, dishing out advice and

cigarettes to his crowd of desperate disciples.

Even men who weren’t drinking with us were perking up their ears and leaning in our direction. One scruffy-looking lad had

given up pretending to be polite and perched himself on the end of the table. He can’t have been much older than nineteen.

A bad feeling washed over me and it wasn’t just alcohol-induced nausea. I felt that I needed to get real and get over this. I, Nick

Redland, was turning into a pathetic individual and I didn’t like it. My friends were laughing at me. Instead of making me want to

run out of the pub, bribe a taxi driver and rush to Sienna’s house to declare my undying love for her, I wanted to be as far away from

her as possible.

The heavy beat of house music disturbed my thoughts and Ross rose to his feet, waving his beer in the air like an Olympic torch.

‘This is a tune, lads! Remember this one from Ibiza?’ he shouted, wiggling his hips to the track. It was tragic. So tragic I had to join

in.

Next thing I knew we were all at it, as if my love life was so impossible to solve that the only thing to do was dance it out. Badly.

We were men. This came more naturally to us than talking about how we felt.

The rest of the night was a haze; a haze which definitely involved more beer, shots, and added beer on top of that. For the first

time in ages I forgot about Sienna and just danced my troubles away.

When it was my turn to get the next round, I stumbled up to the bar with a half pint in my hands, knocking into a girl by accident.

She turned around to give me a telling-off.

‘Shit. I’m sorry, I’m an idiot. Bollocks, did I throw my drink over your dress?’

She peered down at her ensemble. It involved strips of unusual materials that looked as if separately they had been languishing

miserable and lonely in a charity shop somewhere, yet when stitched together formed the most beautifully flattering dress. From her

left shoulder a frog brooch stared at me. This is definitely what people talk about when they refer to girls dressing for other girls

rather than for men, who are as perplexed as I am by the result. The mad dress, combined with her long, tumbling, messed-up

hazelnut hair, gave her that affected arty air so many London girls have. Still. She was quite attractive. Either that or I was quite

drunk. I prayed I didn’t face a £500 bill for the frock that was probably made by starving children in some developing country. I

would really resent that.

She softened. ‘No, you’re safe. You could buy me a drink to say sorry?’

Cheeky minx. ‘Yes, of course. What would you like?’

‘A single spiced rum and Coke, please. What’s your name?’

‘Nick,’ I replied, noticing a delicate horseshoe necklace falling over her collarbone. It was very sexy.

She smiled at me, and it made my heart race. Suddenly I felt nothing but lust; it took over my whole body and almost rendered me

incapable of speech. It rushed through my veins like a train.

‘I’m Kate, nice to meet you.’ She held out a hand, which I shook weakly, instantly regretting it. Her perfume was unusual; rich,

mysterious and spicy. It made me want to get closer to her. Her nails were painted black; she had that high-maintenance yet totally

distressed cool about her.

It struck me how long it had been since I had actually opened my eyes to the world. How long it had been since I was just, well, a

happy-go-lucky bloke. There were plenty of attractive, lovely women out there. Maybe I was just limiting myself with my tunnel

vision.

Ross waved at me behind Kate’s shoulder and stuck his thumbs in the air. I ignored him.

It was a noisy walk to the bus stop, clattering heels and laughter. We stumbled arm in arm through the streets and clambered onto

a night bus, kissing like teenagers at every available opportunity. We shared a portion of chips, doused in salt and vinegar.

My head was spinning as the double-decker negotiated the streets of London, heading west to my bachelor pad. It never really

crossed my mind that she was coming with me – but it never really crossed my mind that she wouldn’t, either. She definitely wasn’t

getting off the bus, that was for sure.

Just before our stop, she held me back against the seat by my chest and pushed her lips on to my mouth, biting my bottom lip

gently. I felt light-headed, kissing her back despite the audience we had.

The last thing I remember was Kate’s clothes being flung all over my house. Just like in the films, shoes, lingerie and her figure-

hugging dress were littered across the hallway and stairs like a trail of incriminating evidence. I recall running my hands over her

naked body in my bed, being kissed passionately by a stranger. We were twisted in the sheets, tangled legs and arms. Her hair

smelled good, every curve of her body was perfection. She was beautiful.

I woke up in the morning and rolled over. I felt empty inside.

Four

‘Does it feel wrong?’

Sienna

‘So why do they call you Dancing Pete?’ I’d finally plucked up the courage to ask him.

It was cold. Really bloody cold. And I was back here again in the car park at work. Maybe I was a glutton for punishment, but the

memory of his rage had long faded and what I saw was the person behind all that, and I thought he was worth getting to know.

I had seen him quite a few times now. I picked my moments carefully. We had never really talked much about his life since the

photo incident, just light chatter while I gave him things to eat and books to read. Funnily enough, I’d told him about Nick. I had no

idea why. I hadn’t planned to. It had just come out one day, organically.

Pete rubbed his hands together, breathing into his palms. ‘Well, I just used to try and replace the pain of losing Jenny with

anything I could to take the edge off . . .’ he started.

I looked at him warmly, hoping I could get him to tell me more without actually having to ask.

‘Funnily enough, it started with chocolate and stuff – you know, naughty food. When I first became homeless I did have some

cash so I would spend it on as much chocolate as I could get my mitts on.’

This surprised me. I thought about the Snickers bar in my handbag and suddenly saw it in a whole new light.

‘I missed her so much, I had to fill the gap with something, Si. I used to just stuff my face in the park – bar after bar after bar until

I felt so sick that it took the pain away and replaced it with another kind of hurt.’ He looked a little embarrassed.

My toes were starting to go numb from the cold, despite the thick black boots I was wearing, which were lined with sheepskin.

We were deep in the middle of a British winter and this bench in the car park was an unforgiving place. I had tried to take him for a

hot drink in a café, but I think he found the prospect of Starbucks, with its yummy mummies and frothy, skinny, whippaccinos, a bit

too much. I could hardly blame him; even I felt massively inferior in that place.

‘But then that wasn’t really enough any more, I needed something else to numb the pain. So I started drinking . . . A lot. It was a

progression from the odd bottle here and there to a constant state of inebriation.’

It struck me how articulate he was; he could express himself beautifully. I think that’s why I found him so intriguing. I noticed he

needed a shave again.

‘People walking past would sometimes give me a bottle, and I scrounged enough money to buy myself alcohol but not enough to

ever get myself anywhere or buy myself anything decent. So the short-term solution was to dilute my thoughts . . .’

I studied his nose; it was red and swollen from the years of abuse. I had never really noticed it before. His eyes were bloodshot,

but you could tell he was still young – in his early thirties, I guessed.

‘Then bottles of cider weren’t enough any more, so I started to turn to the hard stuff. You know, vodka and that. From there came

the drugs. Cocaine was too expensive, obviously, but there was a lot of weed around, pills – you name it, I took it.’ He breathed in

deeply and looked at me as if I was too delicate to know what had happened next. Then he continued, ‘I just spent all my time in this

crazy world, where everything was always spinning and twisting and jerking, and when it started to stand still again I knew that I

was sober again and the pain would come back.’ He chuckled quietly in disbelief at the memory.

‘So basically you were self-medicating?’ I said as a squirrel came and darted around at my feet before stealing a morsel of bread

and speeding off up a nearby tree.

‘Yeah, pretty much. Friday and Saturday nights were the worst. I would hang around outside bars, listening to the music, and I

would just dance. People would come and dance with me; sometimes they laughed, sometimes they cried. I became a bit of an

attraction for drunk people when they left bars and nightclubs.’

I imagined his slight frame jerking around in time to some distant bassline. I imagined the drunken louts pointing and laughing. I

imagined the heartbroken girls taking his hand and moving with him in the darkness as tears rolled down their cheeks. I could

imagine it all. He must have been like a comedy act for them. Someone to mock when showing off to their friends.

‘I must have looked like a right idiot. The things people used to say, Si . . . It hurt so much, but I just didn’t care. There’s this one

song, this song Jenny and I used to love. We used to play it in the kitchen and run around like wild animals. Those were some of the

happiest moments of my life.’ He smiled and the chill left my body just looking at him.

‘It was called “You Get What You Give”.’ He paused, as if the next bit was too painful. Then he started reciting the words to

himself: ‘You’ve got the music in you, don’t let go . . .’

‘I know that song. I love it! It’s by the New Radicals, isn’t it?’ I cried, clapping my hands together with glee.

‘Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it? Well, this one night I was outside the bar on the corner there, and it came on and I was so gone I thought