Scratch (37 page)

‘I don’t exactly know her well, or even at all come to think of it,’ Terry said. ‘But she doesn’t seem like the type who would say that, or at least not when she’s telling you she wants to get together. I mean, I can easily imagine her actually
being
ashamed of you, but not kidding on she wanted to be your bird at the same time. That doesn’t make sense.’

‘It doesn’t, does it?’ I said. ‘That’s why I don’t know what to do. She definitely has a real problem with people finding out about us.’

‘I thought that was only till she sorted out the Germany situation.’

‘So did I, but it feels like it’s more than that now. She was so angry at Kate. I mean, she’s only a daft wee lassie, but Paula was raging.’

‘You need to talk to her,’ Terry said.

‘Even after she said that? There’s pride involved here.’

‘Jim, you live with your parents and earn less money than you did ten years ago, you don’t
have
any pride. Besides, fuck pride. This is too important to play mind games.’

‘You reckon?’

‘I know it wouldn’t stop me calling Ron if we had a barney, no matter whose fault it was.’

‘You really like her, don’t you?’

He blushed. ‘What, you’re the only one allowed to fall in love?’

‘You soppy big poof.’

‘I thought we’d cleared up that little misunderstanding,’ Terry said.

‘Well you are calling her a man’s name, so maybe there’s something in it after all.’

‘Aye, away and fuck yourself. I’m serious, though; you should phone Paula and get it sorted.’

‘Get what sorted?’ Ronni asked, appearing beside Terry.

‘Jim accidentally split-up with Paula.’

‘What?’ Ronni sounded horrified and glared at me. ‘You
are
an idiot,’ she said.

‘Yeah, you might be right,’ I agreed.

***

Terry explained to Ronni how big an idiot I was over another drink, then they left to go virtual flat hunting over at Terry’s. They invited me to join them when I finished work. I said I might, depending.

Sammy appeared shortly after five.

‘You are a
wanker
, Jim Cooper!’ He stood at the bar, staring at me like he wanted to grind my pathetic life into the ground under the heel of his Italian leather shoe.

‘You’ve spoken to Paula, then?’ I said.

‘Spoken to her? Why do you think I’m late? Andrea and I have been getting cried at by her since yesterday. She had to stay at mine last night because she was too upset to face her parents. How could you get up and leave her like that? The poor soul’s got enough on her plate without you being an immature wee prick.’

‘But,’ I said weakly. I didn’t have a follow up, so said ‘but’, again.

‘Don’t you
but
me, young man,’ Sammy said. ‘And yes, I’m aware there may have been quite a funny gay joke there, but this isn’t the time. What were you thinking?’

‘Sam, she said being with me made her look bad.’

‘Oh, you stupid little fuck-hole. She said being
caught
with you could look bad.’

‘What’s the difference?’ I’d just got his ‘
but
me’ comment, and smiled despite myself, though I think I managed to hide it under a cough.

‘Grow up, Jim,’ Sammy said. ‘Do you have any clue what she’s dealing with? Not only is her marriage in tatters, but the business she tried to build, and all the money her parents and everyone else lent her is gone. Don’t you know how bad that makes her feel? And yet, despite all that she was willing to open herself up to you, and all she asked was that you were discreet until she could at least deal with the one thing she still had some control over, her marriage. She’s not ashamed of
you
, you little idiot, she’s ashamed of
herself
. So what do you do? Get up and walk out on her when she’s at her most vulnerable. Christ, she had to phone Andrea to take money in to pay for
your
lunch. She only had enough to go halfers with you, you inconsiderate wee shite.’

Sammy’s emotive, high volume rant had the desired effect and I felt terrible. I felt worse when I noticed Abe and Jed standing behind him, mouths hitting the floor. I then had a horrible premonition, and turned to see Kate standing in the office doorway, her mouth not so much hitting the floor as part-way to
Australia
.

‘Eh,’ I said (obviously). Sammy was bad enough, but at least he was
involved
. Trying to explain myself in front of the other three was going to be a nightmare.

We all stood there looking at each other, a classic Mexican stand-off, but without the guns. Then the pub door creaked and we all spun round to watch Lucy walk through. She stopped when she saw us peering at her and slowly pulled her earphones out.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Why are you all staring at me?’

Ever the professional, Sammy broke first. ‘Hi, gorgeous,’ he said. ‘Sorry, we were just shouting at Jim. Or rather I was and they were all watching.’

Lucy thought for a moment, then shrugged and headed towards us. ‘Fair enough,’ she said, apparently satisfied. She brushed past Kate and went through to the office.

Sammy returned his attention to me. ‘Jim, I’m officially letting you leave early.’ I looked at my watch, it was quarter-to-six. ‘On condition you start acting more mature than the cheese I had on my toast this morning, understood?’

I nodded humbly, and went into the office to get my stuff. ‘What’s going on?’ Lucy asked, hanging her denim jacket in the lone, door-less locker. ‘Are you in trouble?’

I picked up my own crumpled, black-nylon bomber from the plastic chair I’d thrown it at that morning. ‘Not in a work sense,’ I said. I left it at that, and left.

Sammy was standing at the bar, looking at me in what I felt was an overly judgemental way. Kate was still rooted to the spot outside the office, a relieved look on her face suggesting she was glad Sammy had shouted at me rather than her.

Abe and Jed both sniggered as I rushed past them on my way out.

I pulled up Paula’s number on my mobile’s address book as I climbed the stairs, and hit green when I reached the top.

It rang, then it rang, and then it rang again. It rang so loudly, so ominously, in my ear that I almost thought I could hear it ringing in the real world, too.
Shit
, I thought. She doesn’t even want to answer me.

           
I was mentally trying to compose a mature, positive,
please love me again
voice-mail message when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

‘Jesus Christ Almighty!’ I reached a height of about six-inches before I landed again and turned.

‘No, it’s just me,’ Paula said.

I didn’t even manage an
eh
.

‘You owe me a meal,’ she said.

***

‘I have totally lost track of whether I’m a wanker or an idiot,’ I said once we’d ordered.

‘You’re exhibiting symptoms of both,’ Paula said.

Although neither of us had said anything the thought of an awkward bus or taxi journey had been too horrible to contemplate and we headed silently across the road from The Basement to Bashir’s, a decent enough Indian restaurant.

 
‘You didn’t tell me you’d borrowed money from your mum and dad,’ I said.

‘And Andrea, and Sammy, and lots of other people.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You shouldn’t be,’ Paula said. ‘You didn’t know. Funnily enough it’s not something I particularly like talking about.’

‘I understand, but I wish you’d told me.’

‘I probably should have. I would have eventually.’

‘If this is going to work we need to be honest about stuff,’ I said. At least I think it was me. ‘No stupid mind games, no holding the hard bits back. I will happily show you an actual wart I happen to have about my person.’

Paula looked suddenly scared.

‘My foot,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s on my foot.’

‘More of a verruca, then.’

‘I suppose,’ I said. ‘You know what I mean though.’

‘You’re right.’ She sighed (she did that a lot, I’d noticed). ‘But … all that stuff, about money, the school, and Ingo. It’s …’

‘What?’ I could see she was struggling with how to word something.

‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

I wasn’t sure how to take that, and fell back on, ‘eh?’

‘Sorry, that sounded terrible. I just mean I need to sort it out myself, and till I figure out how I’m going to do that it doesn’t feel right talking about it, to you.’

Nope, still not sure. ‘All I want to do is help you through it. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?’ I had been single for a while, but I was fairly certain ‘talking through problems’ was still in the
good boyfriend’s handbook
.

‘I know you want to help, and I appreciate it, honest. But, every time you mention Ingo, or anything else about
Germany
, I sort of freeze. You weren’t in my life through any of that, Jim. It’s been a huge chunk of my life that you had nothing to do with, and it isn’t finished yet. I know you can’t wait for it all to be done and dusted so we can move on, but it isn’t that simple.’

‘I know that,’ I said, not by any means certain that I did.

‘You don’t, Jim. I’m sorry, but you don’t. I might accept it, but I’m
sad
my marriage didn’t work; I’m
pissed-off
my business failed; I’m
utterly fecking miserable
about having to move back to Scotland. My life was supposed to be in
Germany
, not here, and it does my head in sometimes that I’m back.’

‘If it helps, you’re making me pretty miserable now, too.’ Of the three things she wasn’t happy about, I could understand the business one. The other two were a little more troubling.

‘See?’ Paula said. ‘That’s why we can’t talk about it. Of course you don’t want to hear it, why would you? You shouldn’t have to hear this. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true, though. You want me to be honest? Well this is it. I love you, but right now I can’t pretend to be happy, because I’m not.’

I was determined not to say
eh
again. After a moment, I accepted I had to say something else instead. ‘Is what’s happened with us making it harder?’ That was actually fairly valid and insightful, and I almost congratulated myself, before remembering you should never ask a question unless you’re sure you want to know the answer.

Paula paused, agonisingly. Then she smiled.

‘No, of course not. More complicated maybe, but not harder. The thought that we’re going to be together is the only thing that keeps me going, half the time. I
do
love you, Jim; feck knows why sometimes, but I do.
That’s
me being honest, too. But you need to understand that I’m not always going to be Miss Sunshine and Light until I get everything sorted out.’

In the interests of full-disclosure I will mention that the words
well get it fucking sorted out then
flashed through my mind, but only briefly. ‘I’ll do my best.’

Paula took my hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Thank you.’

I squeezed back. ‘You’re welcome.’

The waiter arrived with our food. As he turned to leave again Paula stopped him. ‘This is his treat,’ she said, nodding at me. ‘So I think I’ll have a large white wine, thanks. Jim?’