Authors: Calvin Wade
“I know he is. He’s an ugly bastard!”
“Bloody hell! Listen to yourself. So what if he’s not good looking? He’s a gentleman.”
“A gentleman! He’s a window cleaner!”
“So? He doesn’t spend his life looking for the next opportunity to notch another one up on his bedpost. He doesn’t cheat and lie or abandon his own child. I tell you what, I wish he was Will’s Dad, I really do.”
“See! This is exactly why I don’t want him anywhere near my son, you fancy him! Listen to the way you talk about him as if he was some fancy knight in shining armour. He isn’t, Nicky! Simon Strong is a fat, ugly, dreary bloke. I pity you, Nicky.”
“Get out!”
“What?”
“Get out my house! You can fight me through the courts if you really want to, but until they tell me that you must have access to Will, I don’t want you anywhere near him, so go on, do one.”
I started pushing Jason towards the door. He made no attempt to stay, no attempt to say he wanted to say goodbye to his son or give him a kiss. He did want to make one further parting shot though.
“You must be desperate Nicky, having to hang around with the likes of Simon Strong. I remember at school, you were the girl everyone wanted and look at you now. You’ve lost all respect for yourself.”
I felt my calmness return. I wasn’t arguing with anger with any more, I was arguing with logic.
“Do you know what, Jason, you’re completely wrong. I’ve done a lot of growing up since I had Will, I’ve had to, I’m still only nineteen years old and I have a two year old. One of
the things I’ve learnt is not to judge a man by his handsome face. I mean you’re an attractive man and some girls will part their legs on that fact alone, God knows I did, but I’m beginning to learn that honesty and integrity don’t tend to come in the same package as looks. Looks tend to be parcelled up with a large ego and a selfish streak.”
“You’re full of crap, Nicky.”
“I’m actually not. Thanks for coming around, Jason. Surprisingly, I’m glad you came.”
“Don’t lie, Nicky! I know you’re not!”
“I’m not lying. Simon Strong wanted a relationship with me and I wasn’t interested but thanks to you, I’ve just realised I’d be a fool to lose him. Thanks for that, Jason, for once you’ve just done Will and me a really big favour. I shall look forward to seeing you in court!”
NICKY – July 1995
I rarely went to Simon’s house, as Simon had generally tended to call around at mine, so knocking on his front door inevitably brought back memories of the tragic day that Colin died and I had rushed around to see Simon. Simon and I had always had a bond. I had just never considered it to be a romantic one. Knocking on his door, as a nineteen year old, I still wasn’t sure. Simon was no Mr.D’Arcy but I knew I thought a lot of him and I couldn’t think of anything worse than not having him in my life. Perhaps if you want a rollercoaster ride, you sometimes get thrown off if you don’t wear a seatbelt whilst if you are prepared to stick to the carousel, you know you’re likely to get a pleasant trip around. That was all I wanted from life at that stage, a pleasant trip around.
“Hiya love,” Simon’s Dad said as he answered the door, “come in.”
“Thanks!”
Simon looked like his Dad much more than his Mum. His Dad was thick set with a round face, like Simon had, but he obviously looked older with a bald spot on his crown and black hair that was speckled grey in his sideburns and above his ears. His face was heavily lined for a man in his late forties. I put it down to a life spent outdoors and the pain of losing a son.
“Not got the little boy with you today, then?” he enquired pleasantly.
Mr.Strong wasn’t a man I saw regularly but when I did see him, he always made every effort to be friendly.
“No, I left him with my Dad for an hour, as I wanted to have a word with your Simon, is he in?”
“He’s always in on a Saturday morning, Nicky. I’m not the fittest of men for my age, so Simon does a lot of the grafting on our round, you know like carrying the ladders
and doing the upstairs windows, so he always just likes to chill out at home on a Saturday morning. He’s in the kitchen, go through.”
I walked through into a long, narrow kitchen. As you entered there was the oven and the hob on one side and the fridge and freezer on the other, surrounded by lots of cupboards and drawers, but at the far end, it opened up into a dining area, where Simon was sat on a small, white circular table on one of four chairs, coffee in hand and reading a newspaper. He looked up from his paper, but didn’t say a word at first, he just half-smiled.
“I’ll leave you two to it then,” Mr.Strong said as he discreetly made his exit, “lovely to see you again, Nicky.”
“You too, Mr.Strong. See you later!”
“Sit down,” Simon gestured pulling out a chair for me to sit at. “Do you want a tea or a coffee?”
“No, I’m fine thanks, Simon,” I said as I took a seat next to him, “I’m not staying long, you know what my Dad gets like if he’s left with Will for long!”
“Grumpy and stressed,” Simon replied.
“Exactly. Will misses you, Simon.”
“I miss him too, Nicky.”
“He would have got himself into a right state if he knew I was coming to see you but not bringing him with me! I don’t think he would have allowed me to come without him. He’d have locked his arms around my leg and I would have had to drag him along the floor to get here.”
“Where did you tell him you were going?”
“The Butcher’s.”
“So are you going to take him some sausages home?”
“That might be an idea!”
We smiled at each other but they were sad smiles. The type of smiles people do at funerals when they are trying to be upbeat but there is an underlying heartbreak.
“Are you sure I can’t get you a drink? I’ll make it milky so you can drink it quick.”
“I’m positive, thanks. Simon, why have you kept away from us?”
Simon fidgeted in his chair.
“Do we have to talk about this?”
“Yes, we need to. Whatever happens, I’m not going to allow you to avoid me for the rest of your life, Simon.”
“I wouldn’t want to.”
“Good. So why have you been avoiding us recently? It’s not been fair on Will. If I’d had a pound for every time he’s told me you’re his ‘best fwiend’, I’d be sunning it up in St.Lucia now.”
“Look Nicky, you were right, I shouldn’t have mentioned about wanting a relationship with you. We’re best friends, we’ve been good friends for a long time and I’m sorry I jeopardised that friendship by mentioning how I felt. I’ve stayed away because I’m embarrassed about the whole thing. I feel a bit of an idiot. Say sorry to Will for me and let him know I’ve really missed him and that I’ll call around soon. As long as that’s alright with you?”
“Of course it’s alright with me!”
“Good.”
“Simon.”
“What?”
“There are a few things I need to say.”
“Go on.”
Simon pulled his chair closer to the table.
“Firstly, I’m glad you mentioned how you felt. We’ve always been honest with each other and I wouldn’t want you to be hiding your feelings from me. That would have just been wrong. In a way, I’m sorry you didn’t tell me earlier about how you were feeling. Anyway, don’t be embarrassed about it, I’m not. In fact, I’ve given the whole thing a lot of thought and although I don’t have those same romantic feelings for you, I think I could grow to have them. I’m not promising a happy ending, but I’d like us to give a relationship a go. See how it works out.”
Simon looked as stunned as a lottery winner who had forgotten he’d bought a ticket.
“Really?”
“Really, but on three conditions.”
“OK.”
“Condition one. You understand Will comes first in everything I do.”
“I would expect him to.”
“Condition two. Can we just try this relationship thing out discreetly, without Will, Dad or even bloody Jason knowing anything about it? That way, if it doesn’t feel right, then we can just revert back to friendship without Will being hurt or Dad and Jason saying ‘I told you so’.”
“I understand. That’s fine.”
“Condition three. Don’t ever cheat on me.”
“Nicky, I wouldn’t, you know I wouldn’t.”
“Simon, you may think that at the moment but sometimes once things become more routine, people take each other for granted. I know how you feel about yourself, that you think you aren’t the best looking man in the world, but I reckon as we get older,
women stop judging men on looks alone. You only have to switch the TV on and there’s some beautiful woman with an older, funny looking bloke.”
“That’s because they’re rich. Window cleaners aren’t often millionaires, Nicky.”
“Some might not be rich, they might just be confident. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, you Simon, are a lovely person and as we get older if women start to realise that and make a bee line for you, I don’t want you cheating on me. I’ve had one of those types of blokes and one is enough, thank you very much.”
“I will never cheat on you, Nicky.”
“Good. Don’t.”
“Nicky, you don’t have to keep warning me. It won’t happen!”
“OK, that’s all sorted then. Right, are you going to come back to mine with me? Will’s dying to see you.”
The arrangement had been made and everything from my part had been done in a very clinical way.
“OK, let me get some shoes on my feet and then we’ll go...oh and Nicky...I don’t mean this in a sloppy, gushy, fingers down your throat way but...I love you and I love Will too, so I will never, ever let either of you down.”
I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing. If I’m honest, my expectations levels were low. I didn’t love Simon, not in a romantic way, but I knew he loved me and just as importantly, Will loved him. I just hoped things would work out well and that one day, I would feel the same about Simon as he did about me. Initially though, I wasn’t doing this for me, or for Simon, I was prepared to try this for Will’s sake. I knew Simon being around would make Will happy and in my life, his happiness meant more than anything else.
NICKY – March 1996
I always wanted my relationship with Simon to work out. Originally I just had my doubts that it would. I can totally understand why some cultures have arranged marriages, as a decision about who to engage in a relationship with is made based on logic and not based on love. An intense love that is all encompassing will always fade out, so friendship should always rank above passion when choosing a partner. This is my opinion anyway, but perhaps I was just lucky.
My relationship with Simon stuttered along at first. I guess for Simon, it was a confusing start. He was in love with me, but he knew that love wasn’t reciprocated, so how to act, especially as I wanted to keep the relationship secret, must have posed serious questions of him. Simon opted for clumsy and awkward at first, which didn’t do him any favours, but after a few months he started to gain in confidence and gradually, very gradually, I started to fall in love with him.
One thing, more than any other, made me fall in love with Simon and that was his relationship with Will. They have always adored each other. Bizarrely, even before Simon ever lived with us, if Will ever woke up in the night and shouted for someone, he would shout for Simon. They played sport together, built things together (although from the age of two, Will was more talented than Simon at making things), read together and often ate together. Simon was a man who had spent a lot of his childhood feeling the loss of his brother and I always felt to some extent his relationship with Will filled that void.
My intention had been to keep our relationship secret, but for six months we didn’t have to try, as there was nothing to hide. I’m not sure if we would ever have kissed if it wasn’t for The Shawshank Redemption. For six months, once a week, Dad would look after Will for the evening so that I could go to the cinema with Simon. My Dad needed re-assuring that they weren’t ‘dates’ that he was covering for, but when he was told it was just two film lovers going as friends he was fine about it. As I’ve said, until The Shawshank Redemption there was no relationship to conceal.
Most of the Western world must have seen ‘Shawshank’ now, it has been rated in many polls as one of the greatest films of all time. We went knowing it kept re-launching at the cinema because it was meant to be good, but not really knowing the story of Andy Dufresne, Ellis ‘Red’ Redding and their fellow convicts. Both Simon and I were blown away. It was a story of friendship, laughter, injustice, loss and ultimately about overcoming any hurdle life throws at you. When Simon switched his engine off on our road after the film, romance was definitely in the air for the first time ever. We had chatted constantly the whole way back about the film, Will and about making the most of our lives.
“Thanks very much for coming with me tonight, Nicky,” Simon said as pulled his handbrake, “that has to be the best film I have ever seen. I’ll always be glad that I got to see it with you.”
“Creep!”
“No, it’s the truth. I’m glad we went to see it together.”
“I know. It was amazing.”
“Do you feel really weird? Like your eyes have been opened up to something fantastic?”
“I do. Brilliant films heighten your emotions like that, don’t they? Have you seen Cinema Paradiso?”
“No.”
“We’ll have to get the video out then and watch it together. That was the last film that made me feel like this. What about Il Postino have you seen that?”
“Nope.”
“Oh my God, we have to watch that too. That is heartbreaking though as Massimo Troisi who wrote and starred in it died the day after filming finished. Right, what we need to do is keep a look out at the Cornerhouse in Manchester to see when Il Postino is next showing and when it is, we’ll go over. Also, one night shortly we need to rent out ‘Cinema Paradiso’ and you can come here with a bottle of wine, popcorn and maltesers and we can snuggle up under my duvet and watch it.”
“Thanks Nicky.”
Spontaneously, perhaps emboldened by the ‘under the duvet’ invitation, Simon just leant over and we started kissing. There was no awkward pause, no clunking of teeth or necks turning the wrong way, it all just happened very naturally. Stupidly, as Simon isn’t the best looking man in the world and also because his co-ordination when it comes to dancing is just horrendous, I imagined he would be a hopeless kisser too. He wasn’t. Simon was a perfect kisser, passionate but tender, sensual but not sloppy. It is important to have a good emotional connection when you share a kiss. Kissing is the doorway to physical intimacy, so I was relieved to know Simon kissed well. I literally skipped along our front path. There were positive signs that I was falling back in love, but this time I knew I was backing a winner.