Vince and Joy (10 page)

‘Yeah – cagey. What’s been going on?’

‘It’s nothing, love,’ said Kirsty. ‘Just – everyone got a bit
pissed
tonight. A bit carried away. We had some bad behaviour. That’s all.’

‘What sort of bad behaviour?’

‘Oh, nothing really. Nothing we couldn’t handle. Anyway, how was
your
evening?’ she smiled, and squeezed his hand.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Great.’

‘Where d’you go?’

‘Oh, just down into town.’ He blushed.

‘You know you’ve got grass in your hair, don’t you?’ said Chris, grinning at him.

Vince slapped at his hair and dislodged a clump of dead grass on to the Formica surface of the table. ‘Oh,’ he said, staring at it.

‘Oh,’ Chris laughed.

‘Yeah, well,’ said Vince, unable to prevent a big shit-eating grin from consuming half of his face.

Chris slapped him on the back and laughed. ‘So, did you manage to control yourself this time? Keep your load in the bay?’

‘Chris!’ He glanced at his mother in embarrassed horror.

‘Oh, come on, mate. You know I tell your mum everything.’

Kirsty smirked. ‘Could have done without knowing that particular nugget, though, I have to say.’

‘So – it was cool, was it?’ Chris baited him for more detail.

‘Very cool,’ smiled Vince, suddenly wanting them both to know, wanting to share with them the incredible fact of his lost virginity. ‘Very cool indeed.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And am I reading between the lines correctly here, young Vincent?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You’ve bloody done it, haven’t you? You and that lass? You’ve done it?!’

Vince grinned, and shrugged. ‘Might have.’

‘Oh, you fucking beauty!’ Chris grabbed Vince’s shoulders and gave him a big back-slapping bear hug. ‘You beautiful fucking bastard!’

‘Oh, Chris, honestly,’ chided Kirsty affectionately. ‘Anyone would think he’d just conquered Everest the fuss you’re making.’

‘There are parallels, my lovely wife. The boy’s nineteen in two days. It was a challenge and he rose to it, God love ‘im!’

‘Well, I hate to take the romance out of it, love, but I hope you used, you know,
precautions?’

‘She’s on the pill,’ he said happily.

‘Yes, but it’s not just about contraception these days, is it? What about AIDS?’

Vince smiled. ‘She’s a virgin,’ he beamed. ‘Was. A virgin. Like me. We were both brand-new’

‘Aah,’ said Chris, folding his arms across his chest and beaming proudly. ‘Late bloomers. Isn’t that sweet?’

And Vince smiled to himself because it was. It was fantastic, in fact. He’d always presumed that if he ever managed to lose his virginity it would be to some faceless woman in fancy lingerie who’d done it with a couple of dozen other men, who knew tricks and would teach him everything she knew. He’d always imagined it would be an exciting if slightly embarrassing rite of passage, an X-rated hurdle to be crossed before he could pursue other goals, such as love and relationships.

Sex with a virgin, if he’d ever considered it, would, by its very nature, have been a clumsy, unprofessional affair; a pair of monkeys trying to change a tyre, two learner drivers taking a Learjet out for a spin – the blind leading the blind.

But it hadn’t been like that in the slightest. It was more akin to visiting the Taj Mahal with someone who’d never
seen it before; someone who didn’t yabber on about how to avoid the relentless pedlars at the entrance, who didn’t tell you exactly where to sit to get the best view and how much better it had looked when they saw it in the late afternoon, but someone who arrived at the wrong time, got fleeced at the entrance, waited in the wrong queue, then stood next to you in silent awe as you both caught sight of it together for the very first time.

At some nonspecific time that night, Vince was awoken briefly by the sound of a car engine starting up and the dazzling arc of headlights passing his window.

When he woke up the following morning, Joy’s caravan was empty, her parents’ car was gone and there was an envelope on the doorstep addressed to him.

Inside was a slightly soggy note in blue ink made illegible by the unforecast rain that had fallen in a single, fast-moving shower that morning, and it didn’t matter how hard Vince stared at it and what angle he studied it at, he could decipher only four words –

‘I feel so ashamed.’

Al & Emma’s Kitchen, 1.03 a.m.

‘What?’ said Emma. ‘That was all it said?’

‘Well, that was all I could actually read. The rest of it was just blobs and blurs. I could make out the odd word. The odd “the” or “because”, but nothing to make any sense of.’

‘Shit,’ said Claire, ‘that’s awful. What do you think it might have said?’

Vince shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he smiled, embarrassed. ‘I supposed she’d just had second thoughts, you know. Decided that throwing herself at me in the middle of a field wasn’t something she was particularly proud of. Whatever, she obviously couldn’t face me. So that was that.’

‘But that’s so tragic. Your first love and it was all over in less than a week.’

‘I know. What can you do?’

‘God,’ mused Natalie, ‘I wonder what happened to her?’

‘I saw her,’ he said, ‘about seven years later,’

‘Really! What was she doing?’

‘Well,’ Vince smiled, ‘that’s a very interesting question.’

Magda pulled the thermometer from under Vince’s tongue and held it up to the light.

‘Hmm… ‘ she said, angling it slightly towards her, ‘no temperature. Is it possible you might just have a
cold?

‘Give that here.’ Vince snatched the thermometer from Magda’s hand, squinted at the silvery sliver of mercury and handed it back with a grunt.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘
I feel
fluey.’

‘Well, if you
feel
fluey, then I suggest you stay at home. But I’m not calling your office. You can do that.’ Magda pulled herself off Vince’s bed and ruffled his hair. ‘OΚ – I’m out of here.’ She flicked her shiny black hair over her shoulder and jangled the keys to her branch of Warehouse in her hand.

Vince glanced at the unseemly hour displayed on his radio alarm.

‘Staff training,’ she said, by way of explanation.

Vince pouted. ‘But I’m ill,’ he said. ‘Can’t you stay and tend to me?’

‘No, I can’t! I’ve got staff to train. Clothes to sell. Money to make. Cheer up, though. You can spend all day watching daytime TV, you lucky bastard. And you can always ask Jeff to come in and mop your brow for you if you’re desperate.’

She leaned over him and dropped a lipsticky kiss on to his forehead. ‘Will you live?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Do you want me to come round later?’

‘Yes, please.’

She smiled at him, blew him a kiss and pulled the bedroom door closed behind her.

Vince listened to her leaving and turned to look out of his bedroom window. Some of the trees in the distance were starting to go bald, the sky had that watery, nondescript look of a season in flux and he had a cold.

Summer was well and truly over.

He wandered into the kitchen where Jeff was ironing a white shirt in his underpants. ‘Thought you were supposed to be ill,’ he muttered, his eyes yo-yoing between the breakfast news and the sleeve of his shirt.

‘I am,’ said Vince, sniffing loudly for dramatic effect. ‘Just getting some toast.’ He pulled a loaf of Mother’s Pride out of the fridge. ‘I’m thinking about finishing with Magda.’ He hadn’t expected to say that. He hadn’t even really thought it until that precise moment.

‘Right,’ said Jeff, turning his shirt upside down. ‘Why?’

Vince shrugged and took a tub of St Ivel Gold out of the fridge. ‘Just, you know, where do we go from here? Five months. What? Move in together?
Get married?’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Jeff.

‘And she’s such a sweet girl, you know. I mean,
you
know what she’s like.’

‘Sweet,’ said Jeff, ‘sweet girl.’

‘So, what do you think? Do you think I should? Do you –’

‘Sshhhh… ‘ Jeff shoved the palm of his hand in Vince’s face and pointed at a man in a loud suit on the TV. ‘Markets.’

‘Sheesh,’ said Vince, ‘I don’t know why you bother. It’s not as if there’s any money in them. It’s not –’

‘Christ, will you shut up, Vincent.’

Vince tutted, scraped butter as noisily as he could across his toast and sat down heavily at the breakfast table. He was sure that Jeff used to be a laugh. They’d met as flatmates in another place in Lewisham a year ago and had got on so well that when they’d got fed up sharing a draughty, poky house with three annoying girls from South Africa they’d decided to bail out and get a place together.

They’d found this place in
Loot –
it wasn’t exactly luxurious, but it had enough classy features like bare floorboards, high ceilings and intricate plasterwork to make them feel as if they were living the sophisticated London dream. The kitchen was rickety and unfitted, but it had a huge sash window at one end overlooking Blackstock Road, an enormous old range and a battered farmhouse-style work surface. It was a cool flat. And Jeff was a cool guy. Way too cool. Cool to the point of a cold shower. Vince used to like the fact that Jeff was cool, but that was when Jeff was only cool with other people – now he was cool with Vince, too, and it was like sharing a flat with a slow-moving glacier.

Vince sat and munched on his toast while Jeff glided from room to room getting ready for work, emerging fifteen minutes later in a sharp navy double-breasted suit, crisp white shirt, buffed black Chelsea boots and subtle patterned tie, reeking of Christian Dior and swinging his briefcase as if he was actually looking forward to going to work.

‘You don’t fancy giving the place a once-over with the Hoover, do you, mate? Since you’re at home all day’

‘What am I – your wife?’

‘Only asking. Right. ‘I’11 see you later. Don’t wait up.’ And then he left, leaving Vince feeling very much like a wife – and a neglected one, at that.

Four hours later, Jeff was back. His tie was loose and hanging round his neck like a noose. His breath smelled of pubs and his eyes had a red tinge to them.

‘What’s going on?’ said Vince, eyeing him up in the hallway.

‘Fucking cunts,’ said Jeff by way of reply. He dropped his briefcase on the floor and ripped his tie off.

‘What?’

‘Fucking cunts,’ he said again. ‘Made me redundant. Wasn’t even allowed to finish the day. Had to leave there and then. Jesus.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘Do I look like I’m joking?’

‘No,’ said Vince, ‘not really’

‘Fucking cutbacks. Last in, first out. Jesus Christ.’ He grabbed a handful of his hair and slumped over the kitchen table. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Get another job?’

‘Yeah,
right,’
he thundered, ‘because if Janssen Higham are making people redundant then there are bound to be
loads
of other jobs going spare in the City, aren’t there? Because the other banks are just desperate to pick Janssen’s shitty leftovers out of the gutter, aren’t they?’

Vince shrugged. The way the City worked was a complete mystery to him.

‘No,’ sighed Jeff, ‘it’s over. The bubble’s burst. The
dream’s over.
Reality bites, man… reality bites.’

Vince bit his cheek and tried not to laugh. Jeff always behaved as if he thought he was being filmed.

‘So,’ Vince propelled Jeff’s original question back at him, ‘what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jeff, letting his head flop backwards. ‘I really don’t fucking know.’ He sniffed loudly and slapped the palms of his hands on to his thighs. ‘Right now I just want to get arseholed. You well enough to make it to the pub?’

Vince weighed up the benefits of lounging around the house in his dressing gown watching daytime TV and eating toast against the rare and hedonistic pleasure of a solid midweek afternoon’s drinking, and went to his bedroom to get dressed.

It took Jeff two further days and a hell of a lot of drinking to decide what to do about his future. He pondered various business ventures – up-market sandwich deliveries, up-market tie shops, up-market party planners – but when his parents told him they’d rented a luxury five-bedroomed villa in Estepona for the whole winter and invited him along to ‘clear his head’ and ‘consider his options’ he’d made his mind up immediately. He put his redundancy payment into a high-interest bank account, packed his tennis racket, his sunglasses and his swimming trunks, and headed for the Costa del Sol with barely a backward glance. His future could wait until next year.