Dan Taylor Is Giving Up on Women (5 page)

Rob stabbed the panel on his treadmill and upped his running pace to a point where breathing, never mind talking, was a challenge, but male pride meant I had to try and catch up. I accelerated and was soon matching pace for pace, which meant he went faster. So I went faster again, until we were both virtually sprinting. I managed a nod to the old ladies next to us, who looked back sympathetically at the wheezy young man having a hot flush.

As suddenly as he had started, Rob finished his sprint, thumping the stop button and levitating himself off the track with his arms. I hit stop too, but just slumped on the control panel as the mill slowed down, face resting on the cold plastic while the rubber under me dragged my feet backwards.

‘You know the main thing though, sport?’ asked Rob, closer to being his peppy usual self, as we trudged back to the changing-room showers. ‘I have a terrible responsibility now. Like the noble red Indian…’

‘Native American,’ I corrected.

‘Right, Tonto. Like the noble native American indigenous tribesman and casino magnate, I believe that saving someone’s life makes you responsible for protecting it in the future. And so I have to redouble our efforts to find the woman to make your life worth living. Or at least get you laid.’

‘You know, I’m still not sure about this,’ I told Rob as we battered life back into our limbs in the showers. ‘I tell you, I could be getting a lot of stuff done if I just avoided situations that leave me hugging myself in a foetal position of shame and embarrassment.’

‘Bollocks to that. The last thing anyone wants to see is you taking up knitting as a hobby. The only way to get you out of that foetal position is to get you into some more erotic ones. Oh, hi, Darren.’

Darren, one of the big body builders, spun on his heel and decided perhaps he’d wait for his shower until he got home.

‘But what if I’ve had all my luck? What if I’ve had my one grand affair and my destiny now is to go on alone?’

‘Destiny? Luck? I don’t need to get the tarot cards out to know that that’s double bollocks. Scraping the bottom there, sport, when you should be out there grabbing them,’ Rob said as we headed to the lockers to get dressed.

‘No, you’re our baby now. And if I can prove to Hannah we can look after you, maybe she’ll think we could manage a real one, which would probably involve less puking and high-pitched crying. So stay by your phone because once I get home we’ll be getting stuck into the next phase of the project to get you sorted. Unless Hannah’s decided there’s nothing more arousing than a man still glistening and pumped from a hard physical workout — see you later, Tom, bye — and can be convinced to go for another set of twenty reps. But let’s work on one miracle at a time.’

We finished getting dressed and wearily grabbed our bags, heading for the exit. As we opened the door into the lobby the muffled throb of motivational dance music got louder and we edged past a group of fitness instructors and regulars working on timetables for their chosen methods of torturing themselves. Out in the surprising cold of the car park, Rob pulled up.

‘I’ve forgotten something. You go on ahead. I’ll call you later. Remember, stand by your phone.’

I wandered on, not paying much attention, distracted as I was by my phone. A text message from Delphine.

Maybe things were looking up.

Alex is such a bastard. I’m so stupid. :-(

In case the message itself weren’t enough, the emoticon let me know that Delphine was not happy this Sunday morning. But what other significance did the message have? I’d spent the walk home pondering what it might have meant, and how I would reply. It was terrible when someone you knew and liked was so obviously unhappy, and going through a difficult emotional time. But hey, the upside was she was telling me about it.

My stomach got a jitter of excitement at the thought I might be the person she turned to at these times. It crossed my mind that I should let Rob and Hannah know what was going on — this fell into their responsibilities under our wager after all. But they had their own stuff to deal with, and I thought it’d be cool if, as they slaved away trying to find the right person for me, I could turn around and say, actually, I’ve got myself sorted, thanks. So let me buy you that dinner and let’s crack open the champagne and toast my gorgeous, interestingly angst-ridden, extraordinarily bendy, French girlfriend.

But just maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, I thought. It was eleven o’clock by the time I got home, meaning the message had come in thirty-five minutes ago. I had to reply quickly now to be sure the window of opportunity didn’t close.

You’re not stupid! Are you OK?

I hadn’t exactly managed to hone the one hundred and forty characters that’d solve all her problems and make her fall into my arms in one text, but I figured this would be just the start. An opening move in text chess, and I’m a grandmaster. I poured a big bowl of chocolate Shreddies®, made an oversized mug of tea, and switched on the
Cheers
marathon on the comedy channel as I settled down and waited for the next move. I felt the buzz through the arm of the sofa as my mobile vibrated and beeped to say I had a new message.

I am not OK and he’s a bastard. And I AM Stupid

Yes! I thought to myself, we have a live situation here. Now I can make her feel better, and wow her with what a sympathetic young man I am. I muted the TV so I could concentrate on my replies without the benefit of the laughter of a live studio audience.

Right. All the thickoes I know are bilingual…

Within seconds of my reply going out, another message came right back in.

If I’m so smart how come I let him make me feel so unhappy? Why is it me always bending over on my back for him?

I think this was one of those times when an idiom hadn’t quite been mastered. But what if it was intentional? My fingers flew over a response.

Now there’s an image. ;-)

I hesitated slightly as I entered the characters for a winking emoticon, and my hand hovered over the send button. Was this what had become of me? Was I really a person who used little smiley faces in saucy texts? But what else could I do with a remark like that? An exclamation mark would have seemed too excitable, and just dots might have left it ambiguous on whether I thought it was a nice image. Did the text itself make me look like a seedy pervert? Maybe so, but the smiley bracket meant I was at least a friendly one.

I held my breath and sent the message — and that was why I loved the invention of the mobile phone. I couldn’t say something like that to someone in real life. Being mildly flirtatious never seemed to work so well if you had to repeat yourself because you were mumbling slightly, and were blushing uncontrollably because you’d paid someone a compliment. God forbid, they might actually think that you ‘like’ them.

Minutes passed, and I watched the silent TV as I fretted. Sam Malone, the bar owner, was chatting up twin college
students while the posh barmaid looked on despairingly at his behaviour. Had I gone too far? Been too tacky? Perhaps I should send another message, explaining that, despite the impression given by my comments, I wasn’t objectifying her by thinking about her in heels and lingerie leaning seductively over a giant bed like an
FHM
cover girl.

Although now, of course, I was.

On the TV, Sam returned to the bar to collect drinks for the two young women and was being looked upon with awe by Norm and Cliff the postman from their usual barstools. A wink and a wisecrack and he was back to the table with the early eighties’ hotties, while I was left waiting with a mildly suggestive text message hanging in the air. I checked my outbox to be sure that it actually went. It did, six minutes ago.

Oh, God, I thought, she’s been looking for words of consolation from a friend when she’s genuinely upset about the conduct of a man she might actually love, and I’ve been acting like a leering chimp. While Sam was taking a phone call, Cliff had approached the two young students and was making a clumsy play, trying to look cool in his postie uniform with the trousers slightly too short for him. All he got for his troubles was a derisory laugh from the girls and a clip around the head from barmaid Carla. It was no less than us half-witted buffoons deserved.

Then my phone beeped.

Oi! Cheeky!! :-p. He’s just come in to collect his shoes, he’s spending the whole day watching football at the pub with his stupid mates :-(

I thought I’d got away with it.

Choosing to leave you to go out to watch 22 sweaty men spit and scratch themselves in high definition? Madness!

Sam cruised back to the girls, who finished their drinks and they all left the bar together. As I waited to hear what Delphine had to say next, I pondered what my own next message should be — in text chess you’ve got to be thinking several moves ahead. I was thinking that now I’d highlighted some of Alex’s faults as a putative boyfriend, I should probably lay off him to not look bitter. I did think about mentioning the fact he was wearing the same stinky socks two days in a row, and was probably using her toothbrush, but that looked a bit petty.

No, I decided my next move should be to raise the prospect that she could be doing something more fun with her Sunday afternoons than hanging around at home while the bloke she’d been expecting to see got pissed.

Then, next week in the office I could casually mention the cinema listings in the
Metro
during a coffee break, and get an idea if there was something she’d like to see. That day I could go by myself to see the latest nihilistic psychodrama with subtitles the French seemed to watch for fun, and maybe send a text on my way home saying whether it was any good or not.

After that, I’d just need to keep a track of the film listings in
Time Out
to monitor whenever there was a Gallic Despair season on at the Everyman. Then, the next time she was looking for textual sympathy because she’d been let down by a spotty oik, I’d be able to leap in and suggest we forget about him and cheer ourselves up with Canal Plus’s latest romantic comedy about the suicidal paraplegic and the bi-polar single mother.

From there it was just a matter of casually suggesting we grab a bite at a hot new tapas bar afterwards and getting sufficiently drunk on San Miguel to suggest we do it again some time on a proper date. Our superficial office-based friendship would then be out there in the real world.

Checkmate in a few simple moves.

I jumped as my mobile beeped at me again:

Would you like to go to the pub to get pissed this afternoon?

Or that might be a quicker way to do things.

I stared at the message, my heart rate up to the levels it’d reached on the treadmill earlier. I started to think about how I could say yes in a way that sounded keen, but not too eager. I jumped again as the phone started ringing in my hand. Shit! She was calling. I’d have to do these arrangements in real time. I’d have to be decisive about
venues without having Googled for the best pubs in her vicinity. Or maybe it was him, Alex, calling to tell me to back off or he’d pound me to a pulp in a greasy headlock.

I looked at the caller display – false alarm: it was just Rob and Hannah.

‘Hello?’

‘Hiya, Dan, it’s just me. What are you up to?’

I was taken aback a bit by it being Hannah rather than Rob on the phone. I could have told him I was in the midst of a text-flirting situation and he would have hung up immediately, knowing it took all my powers to keep up my levels of insouciant charm. But some innate sense of gallantry wouldn’t let me do that with Hannah. Also I would’ve been a little embarrassed.

‘I’m, um, just watching the
Cheers
countdown on Comedy Central.’

‘I’d just seen a bit of that while I was looking for
Slovakia’s Next Top Model
. Did Sam just go off with twin teenagers? The threesomes obsession I just about get, I suppose, but the twins thing? “Yes, I’d like to bonk two women at once, but preferably ones that look identical to keep things simple”? Why not just shag the same woman twice and get her to wear her hair a bit differently? Dan? Are you there? Or did you go off to your happy place when I said the word threesomes?’

‘No, no, I’m listening, they’re doing their hair differently on
Next Top Model
, you say.’

‘Nice guess, but try again. Am I on speaker phone?’

‘Urr…um, yeah. Sorry, I’m just trying to respond to a text. It’s a bit urgent.’

‘Ooh, is it a girl?’ asked Hannah, suddenly excited. ‘It is, isn’t it? I’ll hang up and call you on the landline!’

I returned to drafting my text. So far I’d tried
Yes Please!
— too giddy;
Sounds all right
— too aloof;
Cool
— too vague;
Coolio
— too twattish. I took a break from my composing while I searched under cushions for my ringing home phone, which, it turned out, had hidden itself under the TV cabinet.

‘Hi again,’ I said from my position lying on the floor under the television.

‘So who is it? And why hasn’t this been run by us? You know this is in breach of the terms of our deal. You should probably pay us a fine. Ooh, or do a forfeit.’

‘It’s Delphine from the office.’

‘Ah, your sexy neurotic crush. Now I’m the responsible adult around here, so what’s happening?’

‘She’s had a row with her boyfriend.’

‘Well,
quelle surprise
.’

‘She’s feeling a bit bad about herself, and he’s going off to see his mates, and so she’s asked if I want to go for a drink this afternoon. I’m just trying to find the right way to say yes.’

‘Well, that’s easy — say no.’

‘But, but, but, I’d quite like to go…’

‘And who’s in charge here? Honestly, it’s great that this stunning-looking woman has said she wants to go to the pub with you. And she is gorgeous, and obviously I do hate her in the most complimentary way because of that. But, Dan, your best move is to say you’re busy.’

‘When am I going to get another opportunity like this? I thought I’m supposed to be getting myself out there whenever I get the chance?’

‘She’s had a row with her boyfriend. He’s still there, is he?’ she asked.

‘He was just getting his shoes.’

‘So he’s getting ready to go out, and she’s probably parading around the flat in nothing but an undone old shirt of
his, acting as if his disappearing couldn’t mean less and that she’s got other plans.’

‘And I’m the plans! It’s my chance to get in there!’

‘You don’t want to be those plans, sweetie,’ she said gently, ‘Tell her you’ve got your own plans.’

‘Why would I want to do that?’

‘Firstly because it doesn’t pay to be too available in these situations, secondly because she’s thinking of you as a pawn, not a person, and thirdly because you do have plans — an important part of our dating project.’

‘On a Sunday afternoon? It’s a church group, isn’t it? You’re sending me to some weird post-mass dating cult. I’m in no fit mental state to avoid being brainwashed. I’ll have to sell all my possessions, sell pamphlets door to door and move to Croydon for a girl who won’t sleep with me until the Second Coming. And that’s not a pun.’

‘Calm down, dearie, it’s not dating. It’s prep work. One of the conclusions of Friday night was that if you’re going to be doing a lot of meeting new people, we’re going to have to update your wardrobe a bit. We’re going up West.’

‘Rob’s not going to try and convince me the nineteen-thirties look is back in again, is he? I can’t get my head around spats.’

‘You’re perfectly safe. Rob’s not coming. He’s been called into work — some yoghurt client’s PR crisis because its good bacteria have been found taking a walk on the wild side. You’ll have to manage just with my bad impression of Gok Wan.’

‘Oh,’ I said, a bit taken aback. ‘As long as you don’t keep squeezing my bangers I think we should be fine.’

‘Likewise. Now go and blow off your French Fancy and trust me. You’ll be in a much better position when you’re less available and dressed to kill. Then call me when you’re at the station.’

Hannah hung up and I deleted my planned response to Delphine’s invite. After spending a while agonising, I told her I couldn’t make it today, breaking a personal record of how many times I could say how sorry I was about that into a one-hundred-and-forty-four character message. The response came back immediately.

Oh. OK. I’ll be fine. I think…

I hoped she was going to be OK. It felt difficult leaving someone who’d gone out on a limb to suggest doing something stuck at home, rejected and miserable on a Sunday afternoon. I’d been there myself enough. But I was also a bit relieved to have an excuse to say no in some ways. Things were moving perhaps a little too fast for me and I just thought Iwasn’t that sort of boy…

For a while I just lay there, considering I should probably get up off the living-room floor in a second. Also that there seemed to be a potential fortune in coins and old pen tops under the furniture when you looked from this angle. After a minute or two more of vacant staring, I hauled myself to my feet and braced myself for my expedition into uncharted territory with Hannah.