Mr. Commitment Page 14

  “No,” I replied unsteadily. “Where have you been?”

  “Dinner,” she said.

  “Anywhere nice?”

  “The lvy,” she muttered so quietly even a deaf lip-reader would’ve had problems understanding her.

  “Oh,” I said. It was the one restaurant she’d always wanted to go to. I’d promised her that the first thing I’d do when the comedy took off would be to take her there.

  “Where have you been, then?” she asked, agitatedly fiddling with a button on her coat.

  In my head I attempted to create an evening of sophistication and witty repartee but failed miserably. “A seventies night,” I admitted. I couldn’t help but compare the two experiences. Mel had spent an evening at one of London’s top restaurants while I’d plebed about with my mates in a grotty seventies club. I’d got my wish: I was seventeen again—immature, impoverished and girlfriendless.

  “How was it?” Mel could barely conceal her smile.

  “Okay,” I said and shrugged my shoulders.

  “Where’s Dan?”

  “He had to go home early,” I explained weakly.

  As if he’d just been switched on, Mel’s companion—who I’d been hoping was a garish figment of my imagination—finally decided to speak.

  “Hi, I’m Rob,” he said, and offered his hand for me to shake. He was tall and handsome in the clean-cut sort of way that you usually associate with male underwear models in Grattan catalogs, and his voice was deep and authoritative like a newsreader’s. I shook his hand.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so rude,” said Mel, taking control of the situation. “I haven’t introduced you two, have I? Duffy, this is Rob.” She gestured inadvertently to his chest which seemed to be rippling underneath his dark blue classically cut suit jacket. “Rob, this is Duffy.” She gestured (hopefully inadvertently) to my stomach which didn’t seem to be doing anything underneath my T-shirt.

  “Pleased to meet you, Rob.” I nodded.

  “Likewise,” he said, nodding back.

  Mel was still looking at my T-shirt. “You’ve got blood there.”

  I looked down at my stomach and attempted a chuckle. “It’s not mine, it’s Greg’s,” I explained, and then added hurriedly, “too long a story to bore you with now.” I looked at my watch as if I had somewhere to go. “I’d better be off. Don’t want to be late.” I paused, unsure what to do next. “It’s been good to see you again, Mel.” Inexplicably I began shaking her hand enthusiastically. She just looked at me as if I were mad. I nodded in Rob’s direction. “Nice to have met you, Rob.”

  “ ’Bye, then,” said Mel, tacking a sad little smile on to the end of her sentence.

  “Yeah, see you again soon,” said Rob, the tone of his voice revealing the sort of intense satisfaction that said, “Before I met you tonight you had power over me but now I see I have nothing to fear from you because you are no one.”

  “I hope so,” I replied, my tone of voice revealing the sort of intense woefulness that said, “You drive a big car, you wear expensive clothes and you have a bloody firm handshake—you’re right, I am no one.”

  As in joyful

  Iopened my eyes and looked around, blinking hard. Only seconds earlier Mel had declared passionately, “Whoever wins this duel, wins my heart.” Reacting swiftly I’d grabbed the nearest weapon to hand (a small uncooked chicken) and brandished it threateningly in Rob 1’s direction. Finally, I’d thought. Vengeance! Unfortunately round one of Duffy vs. Rob 1 was all just a dream.

  I was still wearing last night’s clothes. I sniffed my T-shirt. Beer. Cigarette smoke. Hot sauce. I looked around again. Where am I? I wasn’t in bed. I was on a floor—the kitchen floor. Good, I thought, pleased with myself. At least I’m home. I stood up shakily like a newborn Bambi and surveyed the room while my memory booted up. It was the numerous slices of bread scattered around the room that finally nudged my brain into place. Toast. It all came back to me. I’d gone toast hunting.

  Distraught beyond belief at my encounter with Mel and Rob 1, I’d made my way to the comedy club and there continued drinking beyond the point of daft smile and wobbly legs right up to “Which way is up?” At 4 A.M. I was kicked out of the club and escorted to a taxi. The driver had asked me where I wanted to go and I’d told him Muswell Hill—which was fine for the moment, but things got a bit more complicated when we reached there and I couldn’t narrow it down any further. After making him drive around the area for twenty minutes, I finally remembered where I lived. Once home, I’d headed straight to the kitchen to make toast, and somewhere in the three minutes it took for the bread to go brown I’d said to myself, “I’ll just rest my eyes for a moment,” and promptly fell asleep. Why I smelled of doner kebab chili sauce, however, I have no idea.

  It being Sunday I spent most of the day in bed trying not to move. During my third nap of the day Vernie came round, rousing me from a very deep and peaceful sleep, in order to have a huge go at me. Apparently Charlie had got a cab home with Dan, and somewhere along the way Dan had been sick over him. This, however, was not why Vernie was mad with me.

  “He’s more depressed about the baby than ever,” she berated more loudly than was necessary to a man of my weak state. “Thanks to your clueless big night out he’s convinced himself that he’s become some sort of pipes and slippers old fart. I could’ve planned a better boys’ night out myself!”

  Hours later, when I’d fully recovered from my sister’s onslaught, I finally emerged from my nest and bumped into Dan in the hallway. Judging by the state of him, hair flying off at right angles to his head, nine o’clock shadow on his chin, and blood still caked around his nose, he, too, it seemed, was rising for the first time that day.

  “All right, mate?” I said as we entered the living room. “Bagsie the sofa,” I added, speeding up so that I could lie down on it.

  “Whatever,” said Dan, grumpily heading for the armchair.

  “You’ve still got blood on your nose.”

  He wiped his hand across his face in an attempt to get it off, sniffed his hand and licked it. “It’s not blood. It’s hot sauce. Dunno how that got there, though. Haven’t had a kebab in a few weeks.” He settled into the armchair and flicked through the channels. Realizing there was nothing on, he pressed the mute button. “What time did you get back?” he asked, scratching the back of his head.

  “Must’ve been about half five, I think. It probably would’ve been earlier but I forgot where we lived.” I paused, and looked around the room. “I bumped into Mel last night.”

  “Bad news?” he added, reading my face.

  “The worst kind.”

  “What? She wasn’t with her new bloke, was she?”

  I nodded.

  “Sorry, mate. Life’s crap like that.”

  “Certainly is.”

  “What was he like, then?” asked Dan. “I kind of imagine him to be a slightly apelike medallion man.”

  “No such luck,” I said, stretching out both my arms to the side of me. “Imagine this hand is me.” I waved my right hand. “Now imagine that this hand is him.” I waved my left hand. “Now imagine all the millions of different types of men in the bloke spectrum in between. That’s what he’s like. Nothing like me at all.”

  “Tidy, affluent, career-minded, witty . . . that sort of thing?” said Dan.

  “Exactly,” I pronounced sadly. “My point entirely. I think Mel’s finally found what she’s been looking for.”

  Monday morning!

  7:00 A.M.!

  Monday morning!

  7:00 A.M.!

  Monday morning!

  7:00 A.M.!

  Monday morning!

  7:00 A.M.!

  My alarm clock went off, wrenching me from the deepest of deep slumbers into a Nurofen nightmare. When I was seventeen the effects of a big Saturday night used to be over by Sunday lunchtime at the latest. When I was twenty-five I’d be feeling nearly human by Songs of Praise. But here and now at twenty-eight, with my brain throbbin
g like it was going to explode, and coat the inside of my head with gray matter and memories, I began strongly to doubt whether I’d actually ever fully recover again.

  Showered, shaved and dressed for work, I checked my watch. I was late. I raced through the flat, trying to find my left shoe, watch breakfast TV and eat cereal all at the same time. Shoe located, TV switched off and bloated Rice Krispies abandoned on sideboard, I shot out of the door, down the stairs to the communal hallway, sorted through the morning’s post and was gone.

  The collection of motley souls who frequented the bus stop at my regular go-to-work time had disappeared, whisked away five minutes earlier by my regular bus, the 7:33 A.M. 136. In their place was a similar bunch of odd-looking strangers who appeared to be as disturbed by my appearance as I was by theirs. I could see them silently taking me in, thinking to themselves anxiously, “Who’s he? He’s not a regular! He’s not one of us!”

  After ten minutes of their silent stares the bus finally arrived. Breathing a sigh of relief I got on, showed the driver my pass and settled into my usual seat upstairs, left-hand side, right at the back—a compulsive authority-avoiding habit formed during the school trips of my youth. As the bus juddered along Archway Road I riffled through my post: an invitation to receive a Barclays credit card; a “Greetings From Lanzarote” postcard from an old college friend and an envelope in my mum’s handwriting.

  Dear Ben,

  This letter came for you on Friday. I thought it might be important so I’ve sent it on. Hope everything’s okay with you. Remember, if you need anything at all I’m always here.

  All my love,

  Mum

  I looked inside the large envelope and fished out a smaller one. It was postmarked London and the address was written in a masculine scrawl. I opened it. Read it. Reread it. Looked out of the window. Stared at it again for a bit longer. Screwed it up into a tight ball and got off the bus.

  The office where Mel worked was a hive of activity. Telephones rang every thirty seconds and were answered by teams of people sitting at shiny desks on shiny chairs surrounded by shiny potted palms. It was simply the grooviest office I’d ever been in and exactly the sort of place I’d expect to find the advertising sales arm of a TV company. In the two years Mel had been here she’d managed to smash her way through every glass ceiling they had, to become one of their top account managers.

  Standing at the reception I waited patiently for the flame-haired receptionist to finish flicking through her copy of Hello! so that I could make my presence known. Just as I’d decided that my being here was an extremely bad idea and that I should go, she looked up from pictures of the Spanish royal family and said serenely, “It’s like a madhouse in here today. How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Ms. Benson.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, I’m sorry I haven’t.”

  “Which company are you from?”

  “I’m not from a company.”

  She picked up her phone, and looked up at me expectantly. “Who shall I say is here to see her?”

  “Tell her it’s the man who used to make milk come out of her nose.”

  You’ve got exactly one minute.”

  I could tell from the second I entered the cool, spacious, aircraft-hangar-sized space that was Mel’s office, that she was mad at me for coming to see her at work. I’d never seen her office before. I looked around the room for touches of her personality. There were gerberas on the windowsill (her favorite flower) and a photo of her parents on her desk. There was no picture of me, which saddened me greatly. I knew for a fact that she used to have one because she once told me—it was a picture of the two of us eating ice creams on a beach in Paignton. On the other hand there was no picture of Rob 1 on her desk either, which I reasoned had to be a bonus of some sort.

  Hard Mel was back, and as well as looking her usual no-nonsense self, she appeared a little bored too. I wanted her to ask me what was up, but she didn’t say anything, and neither did I. She started a countdown: “Three, two, one.” When she reached zero, she said briskly, “I’ll let you see yourself out,” and started fiddling with the mouse on her computer as if she was going to start working right there in front of me. Without having said a single word, I turned around and walked out.

  Standing by the shiny chrome lift waiting to escape from this shiny prison wondering why on earth I’d come here in the first place I heard a door open and turned to see Mel—not Hard Mel but my Mel. It was nice to know that even though we weren’t going out anymore, she still found it difficult to be mad at me.

  “Hold on, Duffy!” she called out. I waited. “I’ve got half an hour before my next meeting. Do you want to get a coffee?”

  “You know I don’t drink coffee,” I replied, and she just smiled.

  She took me to a small café around the corner from her office building. I hadn’t said very much as we’d walked there, and I could see that for her this was all a bit of an uphill struggle, but to her credit she endeavored none the less. As it was a warm, bright morning Mel suggested that we sit outside, so while she disappeared into the café for our drinks, I found us a table. A couple of businesswomen were busy in discussion at the table behind me, and at the table to the side of me a young Spanish-looking woman was having breakfast with a chatty toddler. No matter what happens, I thought, concentrating on my reflection in the window of the café, life carries on as it always has.

  Mel returned with a cappuccino and an orange juice and sat down beside me. “So what’s up?” She lit a cigarette.

  She never used to smoke.

  “Are we . . . friends?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Is that what this is about?”

  I nodded. “Partly.”

  She raised her eyebrows and took a sip of her cappuccino. I watched carefully as the froth slowly disappeared from the rim of her cup. “I don’t want to be harsh, Duffy. You must know that I still care about you. But I’m not made of stone. I don’t think this friends thing is going to work. I know I said it was what I wanted as well, but I can’t see it happening. I can’t. Not after all we had.”

  I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying it’s what I want. I mean, I think it’ll be good for us. I promise I won’t interfere in your life. Okay?”

  She shrugged noncommittally and took another drag on the cigarette she shouldn’t have been smoking. “We’ll have to see how things go, Duff. I can’t make any promises.”

  We sat in silence while I downed my orange juice in six continuous gulps and Mel sipped her coffee and smoked her cigarette. I watched as the two businesswomen got up and a waitress came out to wipe the table with a cloth. I looked over at Mel again and sensed that she had more to say.

  “You’re still angry at me, because of the engagement thing.”

  “Yes, you’re right, I am. Why, did you think that I’d just forget that you didn’t want to marry me?”

  “No,” I said, wincing. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to make this up to you. I don’t suppose it’s the sort of thing that can be made up for.” I paused. “Do you think you’ll ever stop being angry with me?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. She laughed quietly. “Probably not.”

  I attempted to look all doglike, but judging from the reflection of my face in the café’s window I didn’t have to try too hard. I was getting the hang of this remorse thing. It was coming quite naturally to me now. I sucked on an ice cube, rolled it around my mouth and then dropped it back in the glass. I was trying to find words that said “I’m sorry” without sounding hollow and empty. I hunted high and low for them but they weren’t there.

  “That guy,” I said after some moments had passed. “The one I saw you with on Saturday. New boyfriend?”

  She shook her head. “Not exactly.”

  My breathing quickened, I crossed every finger I had and sat bolt upright so quickly that I managed to knock the ashtray off our ta
ble. Please, I thought, picking it up. Please let him be just a friend. Or even better, her long-lost brother. Or even better, a stray eunuch she’s become matey with. Anything but her boyfriend!

  “Do you remember when I first met you?” began Mel. “I’d just split up with someone. Well, that someone was . . . Rob.”

  I cursed myself inwardly for courting such ridiculously optimistic explanations for her mystery man. That, I told myself, is definitely the last time I look on the bright side of life.

  Rob.

  I’d remembered his existence but until now not his name.

  Rob.

  Though I’m sure she’d told me at the time, I was also quite sure that I jettisoned such information straightaway.

  Rob.

  The names of my girlfriend’s previous boyfriends weren’t exactly the sort of material I wanted lingering in any of my brain cells.

  “You’re going back out with Rob whom you went out with for two years? Rob who proposed to you? Rob who you said was ‘crowding’ you? Rob whom you dumped because you didn’t want to live with him?” I sighed sarcastically. “Oh, that Rob—yeah, I remember him.”

  “Yes, that Rob,” said Mel, tolerating my playground wit. “I bumped into him in Bar Zinc a little while after we’d split up. Anyway, we started talking about old times and exchanged numbers and I thought nothing more of it. He called me at home a few days later and asked me out to dinner. I said no initially, and then I thought, why not? Why should I have to stay in crying myself to sleep every night? Why not just go out and have a good time? And that’s what I did. I make no apologies for it, Duffy. None at all.” She paused, calming down her quickened breathing. “Does that answer all your questions?”

  It didn’t. Not by a mile. But some things, I reasoned, are best left unknown. I couldn’t not ask anything. Her question was a challenge of sorts—defying me to face up to what I’d done. “Does he make you . . . you know . . . happy?” I found myself asking.