Come Together Read online

  I remove the offending stump of flesh from my mouth and wipe my lips on my arm. Or, rather, on my sleeve. Because I’m still dressed. I’m still wearing the clothes I crashed out in last night at around 3 a.m. when I drifted off to sleep to the sound of Supertramp’s ‘Breakfast in America’ (an irony not lost on my sleep-deprived brain, either then or now). I attempt to sit up and immediately capsize, lie back on my side and wait for the swell that’s seized control of Matt’s house to subside. After a few seconds, it does, and I get to my feet, make a lunge for the sofa and successfully clamber aboard and arrange myself into a sitting position. It’s only then that I risk assessing the situation.

  One word comes to me: Apocalypse. The Four Riders are all present and correct on the field of Armageddon that was once Matt’s living room: Matt, Chloe, Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. The first two are lying beneath me, side by side at the foot of the sofa, spooning like lovers. The others are empty shells of their former selves. Jim’s glass neck is broken from where Chloe knocked him off the table round 2 a.m., spilling his guts all over the rug in the process. Jack is empty, quite literally having had his spirit sucked dry, pointing at where I was sitting while we played Truth or Dare. Looking at this scene of decadence, depravity and almost total futility, I reach the conclusion that my life sucks.

  Something, I decide, has to change.

  I run a quick self-diagnosis:

  Taste: Stale alcohol, cigarettes and barbecue beef-flavoured Pringles

  Touch: Unstable/clammy

  Sight: Blurred

  Hearing: Matt’s snoring; my heartbeat

  Smell: Matt’s feet

  And my worst fears are confirmed. My life; shit. Shit; my life. Right now, it’s pretty hard to spot the difference. I drink too much. I smoke too much. I don’t do enough work. This has been my life for the past six months. This is the way I’ve chosen to live. And this is no longer what I want.

  I hear a cow fart and then realise that it is, in fact, Matt. His expression contorts into a pained wince as his eyelids prise themselves apart. It’s impossible to tell whether this is an upper-body reaction to his butt’s bovine behaviour, or a simple deduction, based on the weak light filtering through the curtains, that, yes, it is Monday morning, and no, he’s not in a fit state to go to work. He groans, checks his watch and mumbles something incoherent. Then, with his eyes sealed tight once more, he gently shakes Chloe awake.

  Matt: ‘Ugudehgedub.’

  Chloe: ‘Uhg. Wotzatsiksmell?’

  Matt: ‘Eyedoanowotyertawkingabowt.’

  Chloe: ‘Uhg. Uhg-uhg-uhg. Eyedoanoweareyeam.’

  Matt: ‘Weergunnabelait. Werk. Weergunnabelaitfuhwerk.

  Chloe: ‘Fukwerk. Eyemgunnadeye. Meyehedsgunnapop.’

  Matt: ‘Lisnclowee. Ugudehgedubnow. Okay? Ugunnagedub?’

  Chloe: ‘Okay. Aislegedub. Tenmorminitsandailgedub.’

  Matt: ‘Okay. Tenmorminits. Budthenweergunnagoatoowerk. Okay?’

  Chloe: ‘Okay.’

  Luckily, my cultural and linguistic skills include the capacity to speak fluent Hangover. As a result, I’m able to translate their intellectual exchange of views and conclude that they’ve made the decision to stay put for the time being. This is good. Because my hangover is moving into overdrive. I need a bath. I need a long, hot soak.

  Five minutes after lowering my aching body into the bath, I’m still suffering a living death. Coupled to my hangover is a profound sense of depression and self-loathing. Forget Frankenstein’s monster. Nosferatu, eat your heart out. I’m the genuine article. I’m the accursed creature destined to walk the earth in agony till the end of time. Dante’s Inferno had nothing on this.

  Physical proof of my ungodly condition lies in the facts that:

  a) The percussionist of the London Philharmonic Orchestra is performing an amphetamine-fuelled solo inside the concert hall of my skull

  b) My stomach is twisting and growling like I’ve swallowed a rabid terrier

  c) The bath’s water level is visibly rising as a tide of sweat seeps from my brow

  In a desperate bid for redemption, I therefore turn to religion. I become a pilgrim and the bath becomes my Lourdes. I chant Praise Be to God for the Gift of Hot Water. I hallelujah over the Cleansing Spirit of Soap and the Bounty of Bubblebath. And verily do I bless this bath and all who slump in her.

  But it’s no good. In this, my hour of need, the God I haven’t believed in since I was twelve years old has obviously decided to return the compliment. I’m left with no option other than to accept the grim truth that my body is not a temple, but a pig sty. And a rather shabby pig sty, at that. But then I remember Amy’s advice from the other day about the Banana Recovery Plan and, with this in mind, I temporarily abandon the bath, drip across the bathroom floor and grab a couple of Nurofen from the shelf. I down them with a handful of water from the tap and return to my watery cocoon.

  Lying here, waiting for the chemical cure to run its course, I grab my mask and snorkel from behind the taps and put them on. A change of environment could well be the key to my recovery. Some people use meditation as a means of sorting their heads out. Others, drugs. For me, though, it’s the mask, snorkel and lying face down in the bath every time. So be gone, dry land, and all your earthly cares. Bring forth Atlantis.

  I submerge myself fully beneath the water and play the old game, the game I’ve played since I was a kid. With my eyes closed, I visualise a seascape through which I’m drifting. Brightly coloured coral reefs below, warm currents all around. I imagine myself having the ability to breathe under water. Fronds of seaweed stroke my skin, fish flash past. And above me, above the waves, I picture a perfect, clear blue sky.

  But there are times when escapism just doesn’t work. And this is one of them. The imaginary scene dissolves and all I’m left with is murky bathwater and Mr Matey foam above my head. It’s a concentration thing, I suppose. And I’m distracted. As in totally. It’s the old problem. The BIG problem. Life. And where it’s going. And how come it hasn’t got there yet. I’m twenty-seven years old and what have I achieved? Answer: nothing. Being aware that this paranoia I’m suffering from is largely a result of my hangover doesn’t make it any less real. I’m wasting my life, and I know it.

  Something definitely has to change.

  At the end of last year, I made a decision. I would quit my job and become an artist. I would leap from the stern of the good ship Comfort, forsaking the security of its complimentary salary, pension scheme and low-pressure, nine-to-five regime. Man Over Board, I would take my chances with the sharks and strike out for the mythical Isle of Fulfilment. And so, on 1 December 1997, I reared up from my work station in the art department of ProPixel Ltd, Wembley. On my Mac screen was a half-completed packet design for Chick-O-Lix™ (‘The tasty chicken bits kids love to dip and lick.’), which, as a parting gesture of solidarity towards feathered fowl the world over, I erased from existence. My resignation letter, typed on Matt’s PC at home that night, stated that my reason for leaving was ‘to get a life’.

  I gave myself a year to achieve this goal. Sink or swim. And if it was sink, then so be it. I had enough experience and contacts to walk back into another crap job with another crap firm. And that would be fine. Because at least I’d have tried. At least I wouldn’t have settled for mediocrity. And, even feeling the way I do right now – with half my allotted year of freedom gone and still no sight of land – it’s not a choice I regret. What is getting me down, though, is quite how much of this year I’ve wasted. If ambition is critical to success, then mine, I fear, is critically ill. And that’s what’s nerving me out. Solution: I must get down to work. Today. Today will be the day I get on with getting a life. A new painting. On cue, an idea racks up in my mind. I feel a rush and tell myself that this could be the start of something great.

  I smile. One good thought. One good thought is all it takes to drive the paranoia away. Just like Peter Pan, one good thought and I can fly. And it’s not like I only have one good th
ought, either. I have two. I have getting stuck into my work. And I have Amy. I run the Brighton episode through my mind, pausing on the good bits: mucking about on the pier, the French restaurant, the hotel shower … all that cool stuff. Amy is nice. Amy is clean. Amy is all the things that I, right now, am not. Amy is definitely someone I should hang out with more. As a friend. As a friend I also happen to sleep with.

  Girlfriend.

  The concept leaps out at me like a jack-in-the-box (or a you-in-the-box, as Chloe says). Same as last night when we were playing Truth or Dare. I remember the instant Chloe spun the Jack Daniels bottle and it pointed directly at me. Matt had been caught telling numerous whoppers, and had paid Dare penalties of swallowing three spoonfuls of olive oil, as well as removing all of his clothes. He was sitting by the sofa with his genitals discreetly tucked between his legs, looking like a woman. Chloe, a more accomplished fibber, had merely had to surrender her jeans. And I, priding myself on having very few secrets kept from these my closest mates, had yet to suffer a single Dare. Until the bottle pointed at me, that is. Until Chloe started enquiring about Amy.

  ‘Would I be correct,’ she asked, a mischievous grin spreading across her face, ‘in describing Amy as your girlfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Liar,’ she reacted, looking to Matt for confirmation.

  ‘Liar,’ he concurred.

  Chloe held out her hand. ‘Shorts. Now. Hand them over.’

  ‘No bloody way. I’m telling the truth. We’ve only just met. We’re mates, okay? Nothing more. And certainly not that. Not the G-word, for Christ’s sake.’

  Chloe tut-tutted, glanced at Matt again. ‘Me thinks he doth protest too much.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Matt said. ‘Shall I prosecute?’

  Chloe sat back, waved him on. ‘Go ahead, my learned friend. After all, you are the lawyer.’

  Matt made to stand, then, remembering his naked state, settled back down and placed his hands over his pubic triangle. ‘I put it to you, Mr Rossiter,’ he began, ‘that you have spent a whole weekend in the company of one Amy Crosbie. I further put it to you, that that weekend was not spent indulging in any of the usual behavioural codes of single people, such as going, if I may use the vernacular–’ his voice quivered with distaste ‘–out on the pull and clubbin’ and largin’ it up with the express intention of getting laid by a total stranger. Why no, sir,’ he moved swiftly on. ‘Quite the reverse, I think. Did you, or did you not, for example, invite this Amy Crosbie to this very house for–’ he made a melodramatic show of clearing his throat ‘–dinner?’

  ‘I did.’

  Matt frowned heavily. ‘’Tis as I feared, ladies and gentlemen of the court. And did you then not compound this error by taking the same dinner guest to a house of dubious repute in Brighton by the name of the Casanova?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I admit, ‘but so what? You both know that isn’t the first time I’ve taken a girl there. It doesn’t mean a thing. Doesn’t make her my girlfriend, does it?’

  ‘In that case,’ Matt pounced, ‘could you kindly explain to the court how it was that when we encountered you earlier today, walking into this very room, you were chuckling and giggling and carrying the aforementioned Amy Crosbie wrapped around your waist?’

  ‘It was just a bit of fun.’

  Matt stifled a snigger, then collected himself, lowered his voice. ‘Oh, no. It was far more than that. Was it not the action of a man with feelings – nay, emotions – for the woman he was holding on to oh so tight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re crap,’ Chloe interrupted, laughing at me. ‘You’re into her. You’re serious about her. Why can’t you just admit it?’

  I avoided their eyes. ‘Because it’s not true.’

  ‘So,’ Matt continued, ‘even in the light of the evidence presented before this court, you’re still not going to hand over your shorts?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Contempt of court, then,’ Chloe said. ‘Game over.’

  ‘Who gives a toss?’ I muttered. ‘It’s a crap game, anyway.’

  Girlfriend.

  The word’s still there, in spite of my protestations to the contrary last night. It’s weird, but at the time I meant what I said about Amy just being a mate and all that. Only I don’t now. And, more bizarre still, I feel guilty about describing her that way to Matt and Chloe. I feel like I’ve betrayed her in some way – which, I suppose, I have. I was drunk, but that’s hardly an excuse, is it? I knew then, like I know now, that it was a good weekend. Bullshit; it was a great weekend. So how come I said all that stuff about her? And how come I switched off once we got back from Brighton and did the nonchalant act? What’s the score on that? Maybe it was her leaving, shooting off to see her mate, and me being back with Matt and Chloe. The Triumvirate. Same as it ever was, getting drunk and talking shit, not needing anyone else.

  Girlfriend.

  It’s not going away. Because I know I’m going to see Amy again. Because it’s something that I want. Soon.

  The thought occurs to me that maybe I should have handed my shorts over to Chloe after all.

  I breathe in, but nothing comes. Panicked, I spin round on to my back and burst to the surface. Chloe’s sitting on the edge of the bath, laughing, holding her guilty hand up.

  ‘Find any mermaids, sailor?’ she asks

  Matt, wrapped in a towel, stumbles into the bathroom and looks at me with suspicion. ‘Why do you do that?’ he asks me, scrunching his face up in distaste.

  I remove the snorkel from my mouth. ‘Do what?’

  ‘That getting up thing. That peeling yourself off the floor downstairs and achieving a state of wakefulness. Why do you do that when you don’t even have to go to work?’

  ‘Because, my brother,’ I say, removing my Amphibian Man gear, becoming a mild-mannered twentysomething once more, ‘I do have to work.’ I pull the plug on my imaginary ocean, stand up and step out of the bath, brush past Chloe with her averted eyes and grab a towel. ‘And that’s exactly what I’m going to do right now.’

  Park Life

  Thursday morning arrives with a surprise: a dream of Amy. We’re sitting on a tropical beach and the sun’s melting across the sea, pulling a starry sky down behind it like a blind. It’s warm, but still I pull her close.

  ‘This is good,’ she whispers, her head resting on my shoulder, her hair tickling the side of my face. ‘I could stay here for ever.’

  ‘Yeah, this is—’

  But before I can say anything else – and there are things I want to tell her – there’s this high-pitched whining noise. I look behind me, but all I can see is the line of palm trees further up the beach. Then the whining’s shifting into rabid barking. I turn to Amy and, as I do, she looks up. At first, I’m too shocked to form a reaction to what I see: a wolf’s head sprouting out of Amy’s neck, saliva dripping from its fangs. I’m paralysed by the sight and the noise coming from her mouth, now pitching into a howl. But then I’m moving, throwing her back, turning, running across the sand, screaming out for help, desperate to escape.

  I wake with sweat running from my brow on to the pillow I’m clinging to. Even here, though, with my eyes wide open, back in my bedroom, the howling keeps coming. Then my heart slows as I realise what it is: Fat Dog, my alarm clock. I reach out and grab it from the bedside table and hurl the furry fiend across the room. There’s a yelp of pain as it hits the wall and drops to the floor, then silence.

  Fat Dog was a present from my gadget-freak of a brother last Christmas. When it goes off, it starts with a quiet panting noise, then rises in volume into a growl, through to a whine and a frenzied bark, before peaking in an ear-splitting howl. The card that accompanied it read: ‘A new girlfriend for you’. Ho, ho, ho. Big Bro’ Billy. Always the wise guy. Still, as Billy presents go, it’s not a bad one. Certainly better than the previous year’s offering of an electric sock warmer, anyway.

  As for the dream intrusion thing, it’s not the first time Fat Dog has put in an app
earance. This is a relief, because it would be pretty easy to get all Freudian about it otherwise. It would be tempting, for example, to interpret my dream as follows:

  a) The tranquil beach location represents my basic need for security and emotional exchange; Amy’s transmogrification into a wolf, at the very moment I’m about to express an emotion, represents my fear of surrendering my independence; ergo, I’m emotionally immature and scared shitless of even entertaining the thought of committing myself to a relationship

  b) Amy’s a bit of a dog herself and I don’t really fancy her

  The direct correlation between the rigidity of my penis and time spent thinking about sex with Amy over the last few days of not seeing her throws the second of these interpretations out of the window. Which leaves me with option (a). But I can’t be dealing with that. I’m not emotionally immature. I’ve got as many emotions as the next guy. It’s just that I’m choosy about what I do with them, that’s all. And I’m not afraid, either. What have I got to be afraid of? I’ve been calling the shots so far, not Amy, right? I mean, it was she who called me Tuesday afternoon. OK, so it was me who didn’t want the call to end, and kept whipping off new topics to chat about. But that’s pretty normal; I’m just a sociable guy. I’m in this as deep as I want to be, no more. I can pull out anytime I want. It’s no big deal. Surrendering my independence? Crap. I’m as independent as the day I met her.

  So much for Freud.

  I reach for the phone. ‘Hi, Amy,’ I say. ‘It’s Jack. How about lunch?’

  There’s a long, soft – and, yes, it must be said, very sexy – moan from her end of the phone. ‘Jack?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, the guy you spent most of the weekend with.’