Authors: Simon Brooke
I look at Vinny, who is smiling and holding something out at
me. It's a rather old packet of condoms. I laugh and dash back downstairs again
without taking them.
'Sorry about that. Just had to talk to Vinny about the rent before
tomorrow,' I find myself saying. God, I'm getting good at lying. Jane just smiles
and looks back at the telly.
So now, without looking away from the screen I begin to review
the situation and the ways in which it might develop.
Jane will obviously have
to sleep in my bed, but will I be there too or down here on the settee? At what
time should I say 'I think I'll crash'? Is that what she is waiting for? If I say
that will she take the hint and make it clear that she would like to be invited?
Or will she just think I want to go to bed alone. I am sitting quite close to her,
I could make a move now. Very discreetly I turn my eyes towards her. She is wide-eyed
at the screen. Nobody could be that interested in anything on TV. She obviously
isn't watching this crap.
God, she does look pretty, though. I love the way she sweeps
her hair back behind her ear. She has a smooth, white forehead and a strong, intelligent
mouth. Now that she has taken off her jacket and her thick pullover I can see her
small, rounded breasts through her T-shirt. I am only two feet away from her on
this old heap of a settee. I could just reach out and gently put my arm round behind
her. I could do the old stretch and yawn routine. What the hell, let's just see
what happens. Besides, you can't let a girl like Jane just slip through your fingers.
The simple fact is that I do really, really like her. I've had a good time with
Marion but nothing she could give me in the way of presents would be as good as
spending some time with Jane.
I look round at her slowly and move forward a few inches.
She turns to me, eyes wide with a look of calm expectation. I
reach over and push her hair back slightly with my left hand while putting my right
on her shoulder, then I move forward and kiss her lips.
Her mouth tastes of tea and sweet spices. I move further across
and draw her into me, slowly taking my hand down towards her breast. As I touch
it she gasps slightly and I feel her nipple harden under the T-shirt. We kiss for
some time gently but not shyly and I am pleased I made this move, especially when
I feel her arm round my neck pulling me gently on to her. It goes on for some time
and I begin to feel hard so I make a move for what I once overheard my sister and
her friends describe as 'inside downstairs' but she gently pulls my hand away.
'Sorry,' I whisper.
She lowers her eyes and says very softly, 'I don't want to do
that right now, Andrew. I mean, I like you but it's too soon.'
She pauses for a moment. 'Besides, you're seeing someone else
right now, aren't you?' Oh fuck. How do I answer that? Why don't I have a reply
ready? I should have thought of it upstairs with Vinny. I can't deny it and I can't
say yes, because it'll just look like I'm looking for a one-night stand and somehow
I don't think Jane would go for that. And perhaps I don't want to go for that with
Jane.
But it's too late now. I've taken too long to answer. The moment
has passed. She realises things are not as simple as she had hoped. She moves away.
'I am but it's coming to an end. It's, it's not really right
...'
She looks at me for a moment. 'Listen, we'd better get to bed.
I'll use the settee,' she says.
'No,' I say too loudly. 'I mean, I'll stay down here, you have
my bed.' I can't think of what to add. I start to say something but it comes out
as rubbish. She strokes my cheek and looks at me for a moment.
Then she does something to her hair and says, 'Do you need to
get anything out of your room before I go to bed?' Jane has gone again by the time
I get up the next morning. I was looking forward to having breakfast with her and
saying goodbye. I didn't sleep much last night, wondering where we stand, where
we go from here, how our conversation seemed to her. I can't ever imagine Jane wanting
to have a relationship if she thought I was already in one. If I am in a relationship.
In some sort of perverse, misguided effort at revenge, I ring
Marion on my mobile on the way to work and wake her up. 'Well, I had the evening
from hell on Saturday,' I tell her as soon as she picks up the phone.
'Why? What happened?' she croaks, still not awake at eight o'clock.
'Channing. Marion, it was awful, it was so bloody embarrassing.'
She coughs and takes a deep breath. 'Why?'
'Why?' I shout. 'Why?' Where to start? I can't really put my
finger on any particular event, it's just that the whole thing was so appalling.
Then I remember the weirdest bit. 'He made a pass at me.'
'Did he? Really? He is terrible,' she says innocently and begins
to giggle. Her laughter develops into a cough. I try and decide whether she is genuinely
surprised or whether she was expecting it. Or even planning it.
'Well, I'm glad you find it so funny. It was bloody awful.'
'Did he do it in the restaurant?' she says creakily.
'No, back at his flat, after dinner.' I sound even more prissy.
'You shouldn't have gone back there then.' Good point.
'I shouldn't have gone to dinner with him in the first place.'
'I hope you declined his kind offer.'
She is beginning to annoy me now so I say, 'He told me that it
wasn't that unusual because you sometimes ...' I'm beginning to wish I hadn't started
this conversation '... you shared lovers.'
'Shared?'
'Yeah, sometimes your ... boys, as he called them ... would,
you know ... with him.'
She seems a bit taken aback but a second later she has regained
her composure.
'Oh, Channing. He'll say anything to shock.'
'He certainly was embarrassing.'
'You're not going to up and leave me and make a little love nest
with him, are you?' she says more kindly.
'I'm tempted to,' I say sulkily. This isn't going anywhere, she
obviously doesn't feel any guilt whatsoever. Not a very Marion emotion, I suppose.
I just look like a silly, strait-laced Englishman.
She laughs again and says, 'Never mind. Look, you'd better hurry
up and get to the office before you get fired.'
'Yeah, I suppose so.'
'Shall we go to New York this weekend?'
'What?'
'I said, shall we go to New York this weekend? Didn't you say
you liked New York City?'
'God, I love it, I'd love to. Yeah, that would be brilliant.'
'Let's go Friday morning, I'll call the airline now.'
'Yeah, Friday would be great,' I say realizing that Friday would
also be great for finally getting sacked.
'Call me when you get home tonight,' she says and puts the phone
down.
At work I follow one of the very few useful pieces of advice
I have ever read in my dad's management books. Instead of asking Debbie for Friday
and Monday off, I write her a memo saying that unless she objects, I will be taking
Friday and Monday off. Clever, eh? My violent threats against the word processor,
although issued under my breath, attract the attention of Claire, Debbie's dreary
secretary.
'What are you doing?' she asks irritably.
'Why won't it type there?' I moan, pointing at the screen and
the uncooperative cursor which just blinks at us insolently. Claire mutters something
about tabs, her fingers dance over the keys and the machine does what I want it
to. She lingers a moment while I send it through to print. Then I sign it, copy
it and drop it discreetly on Claire's desk, which, to my irritation, is unusually
tidy today. I walk past the desk again, pick up the memo and put it into a folder
on her desk so that she won't find it as quickly. I had thought of backdating it
by a few days until Claire saw me type it.
'I'm off to New York this weekend,' I tell Sami casually when
I get back to my desk. 'Can I get you anything?'
'Wow, really?' she gasps. 'Ooh yes, I'd love, I'd love ... what
would I love?' She scratches around the bottom of her yogurt carton with a plastic
spoon and licks it thoughtfully. 'Oh whatever, something nice.' I laugh and decide
that if I do nothing else in NYC I will get something nice for Sami.
I must have been on the phone when the Claire dropped my memo
back on my desk. As I turn round to make a note of someone's phone number I see
it. At first I think it is my copy then I notice Debbie's firm, ugly handwriting
along the bottom. 'Sorry,' it says, 'we're still understaffed as you know and I
think you've had enough time off recently. DL.' I read it through twice. How can
she have seen it so quickly? Claire must have read it on the word processor screen
and warned Debbie it was coming. God that bitch! That fucking bitch! What is it
to her if I take some time off work? The hours I've put in for her over the last
few years!
I feel like someone has thumped me in the stomach. When will
Debbie ever give me a break? It's just not fair. I am just getting up to go and
see her with it when Sami reaches across the desk and catches my arm.
'Andrew, don't.' She has obviously read the note while I was
on the phone. I sit down heavily.
'Why, Sami? Why? For God's
sake. Why has she got it in for me these days?'
Sami shrugs her shoulders gently. 'I told you - just keep your
head down,' she says. 'New York will still be there in a couple of months' time.
Just hang on.'
'I can't hang on,' I say, thinking out loud.
'Oh, Andrew.'
'Oh, shut up,' I say, getting up to walk up and down the corridor
a bit. I wander into the corridor. There is a ping from the lift. People. I can't
face them. I nip into a disused office and close the door quietly behind me. There
is a phone so I ring Jonathan to see if I can get my money yet. I'm not holding
my breath, he is obviously going to make me wait for my cash.
While the phone rings I do a quick calculation and discover that
it's been a month since I did my first jobs. There must be a cheque ready now. I
reckon I've had a couple of hundred quid from Marion in tens, twenties and fifties.
Plus Paris and the Rolex. But I need some cash. Living this lifestyle is costing
me money too.
Jonathan is friendly but cool.
'Yep, let me just make sure here on my sheet. Bub-hubbubbub-bah.
No problem, I'm putting a cheque in the post to you today.'
I'm almost dumbstruck. 'Really? Oh, great. Thanks.'
'No problem. Hope you're around for the next few days because
things are certainly hotting up here,' he says.
'Yeah, yes, I will be.' Hang on, what am I on about? I won't
be around at all. As usual, I'll be with Marion for the next few days. Or years.
When I come back Sami is on the phone so I pass her a Post-it
note: 'Sorry about that. Shall we go to that Italian cafe and have some lunch? Andrew
X.'
She reads my note and then finishes her call and thinks about
it.
'I'm sick of sandwiches,' I whisper. 'Let's have something decent.'
'Oh, Andrew.'
'Oh, Sami.' She thinks
about it for a moment longer and then makes a face in gentle annoyance.
'Go on, then. If it'll cheer you up. We'll have to be very quick,
though.'
I push open the door of the cafe and let Sami in first. We are
met with clouds of warm, sweet-smelling steam, the clatter of plates and the piercing
scream of the Gaggia machine. Most people are finishing up and leaving so finding
a table is no problem. Two of the girls from the paper's Home and Style section
are just leaving. I smile hello at one of them who I've spoken to before at a staff
party. She is wearing a totally unnecessary scarf and gives me a fleeting, patronizing
smile and carries on talking to her colleague: 'I'm still working on that food piece
about that stall in the Farmer's Market in New York that specializes in basil.'
'Oh, yah,' says her friend, flipping her hair away from her face
and adjusting her heavy, narrow, black-framed glasses. 'Isadora's piece. I saw the
copy when it came in. It's like, totally amazing, that place - seventeen different
types.'
'Fourteen,' the first girl corrects her as they head for the
door. When I first came to London I couldn't understand how girls like this earn
less than we do but have their own flats in South Kensington, fly business class
to New York for a wedding and go skiing in Gstaad every year. How naive, how suburban,
how middle class was I to assume that income necessarily has any connection with
salary?
The cafe owner's daughter comes over to us and hands out two
menus, typed fifty years ago and warped with damp in their smeary plastic covers.
'We'll start with a bottle of champagne,' I inform her haughtily.
'Yeah, sure,' she says in her throaty, London-Italian voice.
'We put it on ice this morning just in case you showed up.'
'Jolly good,' I say.
'You wanna watch him,' shouts her dad from over the counter.
'He order everythin', yeah? Then he stick you with the bill.' He laughs loudly,
ignoring another customer who is trying to tell him something about the sandwich
he is making for her. Sami laughs shyly and looks at me.
'That's ruined your date, hasn't it?' says the daughter, poking
my shoulder affectionately with the blunt end of her pencil.
'Sami is not my date,' I explain with feigned indignation. 'She's
my colleague. I'm taking her for lunch, that's all.'
'Yeah, well hurry up and order - we're nearly sold out.'
'Lasagna?' I ask Sami.
She looks horrified. 'No, I told you-'
'Kidding,' I say, squeezing her arm across the table. I ask the
Italian girl, 'Got any of your mum's spag bol left?'
'Yep, just enough for two, as it happens.'
'Spag bol?' I say to Sami. 'It's quite good here.'
'Quite good! Cheeky bugger,' says the girl.
'I'll have the spaghetti bolognaise then. Thank you,' says Sami,
smiling nervously.