“So… how long since you last… you know… had a bunk-up?”
I knew he was going to ask me this.
“Yesterday, if you must know. I mean, our sex life’s fine. That’s not the problem. Regular as clockwork. Three times a week, twice on Sundays. Once we’ve read the papers, after we’ve boiled the eggs, after we’ve caught up with the Eas tEnders omnibus and taken in a bit of Formula One. If she’s not too tired.”
“You’re lying.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yeah you are, you’ve torn the label off your Budvar.”
“Right, you’re right. Once a week, then… once a week. If I’m lucky.”
Vince mulls this over for a while and then he says:
“Still, not bad though, considering you’ve been living together for four years.”
“Exactly. That’s what I thought.”
“Probably just a bad patch, then.”
“Yeah, bad patch. D’you fancy another drink?”
Too right he does.
I’m at the bar waiting for our beers and it strikes me (not for the first time) how much I hate All Bar One. All Bar One is a girl’s boozer. It’s a place girls go to talk about cellulite and make-up and blokes like me and Vince. It’s the Starbucks of pubs: a pub by numbers. It’s even got CCTV cameras on the walls. What the fuck for? What do they think they’re going to find? Probably scanning the room for anyone who doesn’t look like they work in marketing or media sales. And they always give you your change on a poncy silver tray, like you’re actually going to tip them or something. Fat chance.
By the time I get back to the table Kate and Matty have turned up and everyone’s planning new ways to murder Jamie Oliver. Oliver is our long-term hate figure on account of him being a wanker and having a great life and, I have to say, I’m quite taken by Vince’s idea of gutting him and stuffing him with his own entrails mixed with some lemon and parsley to ‘bring it all together’.
“Of course, the thing you have to understand is he’s only half a gene away from being a retard.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Well, he’s got a lisp, hasn’t he, and one of them tongues that are too big for his mouth. It’s like Downies are one chromosome off normal and Oliver’s only a half. He got lucky. He’s only half a chromosome out.” I love Vince. You can always count on him to lower the tone.
“So where’s Alison tonight, then?”
Trust Kate to ask me this. A bloke would know better than to ask you where your girlfriend was. He’d know it might be a touchy subject. I’ve a fair idea Kate knows this as well but she can’t resist having a pop, can’t resist putting me on the spot.
“She’s working late,” I say. “She should be here a bit later.” I glance at my watch. It’s already ten o’clock.
“She’s just busy at the moment, you know, lots going on.”
Kate is about to say something else but Vince gives her a look and she lets it go. Alison hasn’t been out with us for over a month.
It’s starting to get late; the bar staff are twiddling their aprons and hassling us to leave; Matty is on the verge of asking us if we fancy going for a Chinese and I decide it’s probably time to make a move. I tell Vince and Matty that I’ll see them at rehearsals on Friday and I stop at the Seven Eleven for a couple of cans of Stella on the way home.
Alison is watching TV when I get in. She’s stretched out across the sofa in her work clothes and she’s halfway through a bottle of cheap white wine. I fancy Alison in her work clothes. Something about the black tights and the short skirt and the black tights and the fitted blouse and I get the overwhelming urge to go over and run my hands up and down her nylon-covered thighs. Alison says the only reason I find office clothes attractive is because I’ve never worked in one. She’s right, of course.
“Where were you?” I say, bending down to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Everyone was asking where you were.”
“Shhh, I’m watching Ally McBeal. It’s a John Cage episode.”
“You should have come out,” I say, cracking open a beer and sitting down next to her. “Vince had a brand-new way of killing Jamie Oliver.”
“Shhh, I’m watching.”
“Yeah, we’re going to gut him like a guppy…”
“SHHHHH!”
“We’re gonna make tartare sauce out of his own…”
“Danny, please. You know I like this programme. Can’t you just shut the fuck up for five minutes?”
I don’t say another word. I go to the kitchen, switch on the radio and sulk. I’m half hoping that she’ll come after me but she doesn’t. It’s not what she does.
I’m in the middle of fixing myself a tasty snack of cream crackers dipped in yesterday’s Bolognese sauce when I hear Vonda Shephard belting out one of her nauseating covers from the living room. I’m guessing McBeal has almost finished. It has.
Alison pads into the kitchen, squeezes my arm and heads over towards the fridge.
“Sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to shout at you like that. Long day at the mill.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to bite my head off, I was only asking why you didn’t come out.”
“You drank all my Breezers again, didn’t you?” she says, peering into the fridge.
“Y’what?”
“My Bacardi Breezers. There were two left this morning. What happened to them?”
“Shit, Alison. Sorry. I meant to buy you some more.”
“But you didn’t, though, did you? You never do.”
“I do, I got you some on Sunday.”
“You didn’t, Danny. I bought them.”
“Right, you’re right, I’ll go now. I’ll go down the Seven Eleven and get you a couple.”
“It’s too late. It’s too late to buy booze now, and anyway I’ve still got some wine left.”
And then she starts to cry.
“What’s the matter?” I say, putting my arm round her. “Did something happen at work?”
“No.”
“Well what then, what’s wrong?” I can’t believe she’s getting this worked up over a couple of alcopops.
“It’s everything.”
“Everything? Everything like what? Everything like us everything?” She pulls away and reaches for her wineglass.
“We’ve got to talk, Danny.”
“Fine, let’s talk then. I mean, I’ve been trying to talk to you for the last hour but you couldn’t take your eyes off the TV set. I’ve been trying to talk to you since I came in.”
She looks exasperated. She looks tired.
“I don’t mean like that. I don’t mean sitting on the sofa listening to your bloody pub anecdotes that I’ve heard a hundred thousand times. I mean properly. You and me. You and me, Danny. We really have to talk.”
And I’m not stupid. Even I know what that means.
“I’ve been offered a new job.”
“Well… that’s good… isn’t it?”
“It’s in Bruges.”
“Bruges?”
“It’s in Belgium.”
“I know where it is. It’s thousands of bloody miles away.”
“Four and a half hours on the Eurostar.”
“Four and a half hours? What do you mean? You’re not thinking of taking it, are you?”
She starts to pick her nails.
“I’ve been asked to work as a marketing consultant for Thorstans. They make posh chocolates, you know, the ones with all the cream in the middle.”
I’m about to say something fantastically lurid about fondant fancies but I decide this probably isn’t the time.
They’re planning to launch over here at the end of the year and they want someone with experience of UK markets to oversee the initial campaign. It’ll be six months tops. It’s really good money.”
“But you can’t,” I say. “It’ll be full of Belgians. They put mayonnaise on their chips.”
“I think it would be a good idea, Danny. Give us some space from one another. I’ll be home at weekends.”
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you’re actually thinking of taking it. When did they offer you this job exactly?”
“Last Wednesday.”
“You’ve known about this for a week? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to decide by myself. On my own.”
“You’ve decided, then? Already? Without even speaking to me. Your boyfriend.”
“Yes. And there’s something else.”
My heart actually stops beating. I’m so wound up I think she’s said someone else instead of something else and I’m already imagining Alison having anal sex with a donkey knobbed, moustachioed Belgian when she says:
“I want you to get a job.”
I can barely hide the relief on my face.
The first time I saw Alison I knew I loved her. Granted, she was a pixie-nosed blonde with fantastic tits and legs the length of the Mi, but I like to tell myself it wasn’t just her looks. I flatter myself I’m a better man than that.
“Hey, Vince, take a look at her… stacked or what?”
It was in the Camden Falcon. The headline act had just come off-stage and Alison was over by the bar chatting to her mates. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was wearing a tight track suit top with Adidas stripes, a suede miniskirt that showed off her tanned legs, and a pair of ten-hole Doctor Marten boots that looked way too big for her feet. She wore her hair short in those days, cropped like a boy’s. She looked like Mia Farrow. Only with tits.
“Go on, mate, I reckon you’re on. She was watching you the whole time you were packing away the amps.”
I didn’t need telling twice.
“Can I buy you a drink?” I say, wondering if I still look sweaty from the gig.
She stares at me for a long second, checking me out up close, making up her mind. “Yeah, go on, then,” she says. “Why not? I’ll have a pint of Caffrey’s.”
We ended up talking for the rest of the night. Or rather she talked and I listened. I was happy just to listen. Happy that she thought I was someone worth talking to. When I ask Alison about it now, though, she just says, “Yeah, I thought you were OK, but you must have been really nervous or something because you wouldn’t shut up.”
“Did you enjoy the band?”
“Not much really. The singer was pretty awful.”
“I was in the support band. We’re called Yossarian.”
“After the character in Catch 22?”
“Exactly. Did you see us?”
“No. I must have got here too late. We went for a curry first.”
This was good. A curry-eating, pint-swilling goddess who’d even managed to miss the worst gig Yossarian had ever done. What am I saying? Every gig was the worst gig Yossarian had ever done. We were awful. My Bloody Valentine meets Nirvana meets The Smiths. Or was that The Smurfs?
“What music do you like?” (Nice one, McQueen, what a skilled conversationalist you truly are.)
“Oh, I dunno, Blur, I suppose, and Radiohead. I quite like Frank Sinatra, and Wham! when I’m pissed. Oh, and I used to like Spandau Ballet. I was in love with Gary Kemp when I was little.”
I remember feeling irrationally jealous of Gary Kemp at this point.
“So what do you do in the band?”
“I’m the guitarist. I play lead vintage Stratocaster, 1968 limited edition with classic sunburst finish.”
“Hmmmm.” She mulls this over for a while and then she says, “You know what’s always confused me?”
“What?”
“Well, why is it that some guitars are so much bigger than the other ones? I mean why do some of them only have four strings?”
Thank God Vince wasn’t listening to this. He’d have had a blue fit.
To be honest, I wasn’t that bothered by Alison’s lack of musical knowledge. I’m not exactly an expert myself, not like Vince he’s a walking encyclopedia. He knows everything there is to know, especially about Dylan. Dylan, Costello and Dexy’s Midnight Runners. Vince is obsessed with Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
“So, what made you want to be a musician?” said Alison after I’d taken her through the rudiments of the bass guitar.
“I didn’t really. I wanted to be a racing driver, or a karate champion, or a film star, or…”
She laughs. Her blue eyes crinkle at the edges and a crooked smile lights up her whole face. She tells me later that she thought I was unusual. She’d never met anyone who’d said they wanted to be a film star before. Not out loud.
“So what happened?”
“Well, we weren’t rich enough for racing cars and I could never keep up with the karate and…”
The acting?”
I shake my head. “Oh, you know, couldn’t act for toffee. It’s a bit crap really, you know when you find out you’re no good at the one thing you always wanted to be…”
Alison smiles at me like she knows exactly what I mean.
“So what happens now? Where will I live? Who’ll pay the rent?”
“I’ll still pay the rent.”
“But you won’t be living here. You’ll be shacked up with Donkey-schlong in Bruges.”
“What did you say… ? Look, I will still be living here. I’ll be home every other weekend.”
“You said every weekend, now it’s every other weekend… you see the way this is going, don’t you?”
“It’s only six months, Danny. It’s perfect. It’ll give us time to sort our lives out.”
“What d’you mean? Our lives are sorted out. What’s wrong with our lives?”
“We can’t carry on like this. You can’t carry on like this. You can’t work in a video shop for the rest of your life.”
“It’s just until we get signed. You know I’m only doing it until we get signed.”
“You’re twenty-nine, Danny, you’ve got to be realistic. It’s time you thought about doing something else.”
“Yeah, so my uncle bought me my first guitar when I was fourteen. I’d had a nasty incident with a girl at the local swimming baths and he was trying to cheer me up, and anyway, the moment I started playing I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”
“Wow, I think that’s so great. I mean, I think it’s really cool that you didn’t go to university or anything. My parents would have had a fit if I’d told them I was dropping out of my A-levels to join a band.”
We’re back at Alison’s shared house in Tufnell Park and we’re smoking a joint and drinking neat vodka in her box room She’s made it nice, though, not like my hovel in Finsbury Park. It’s amazing what girls can do with a lava lamp and a couple of cushions. It felt like we were in a harem.
“Well, they did go mad, at least my mum did. My dad died when I was a kid.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She says this like she really is sorry.
“I mean, it’s not my mum’s fault,” I say, not wanting to get into my dead dad story just yet. “She had big plans for me. Wanted me to go to uni or film school or something. I think she was scared I’d end up a drug-addled waster.”