Come Together Read online

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No good. How about if you lie on your side facing me …’

  Well, I mean, artistic integrity is all well and good, but there have to be some perks to compensate for the poverty and isolation, don’t there?

  She rolled over, covering her breasts with her arm. ‘That better?’

  ‘A bit,’ I said, ‘but maybe you should move your arm; try resting it on your hip.’ She moved her arm. ‘That’s better.’ I glanced between her and the canvas, frowned, then looked back at her again. ‘Now just angle your leg ever so slightly. A bit more. Great. That’s just great. Perfect.’ I nodded in genuine agreement with myself. ‘Comfortable?’

  She lay there motionless. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  I stared, motionless too, transfixed. ‘Good.’

  What can you say about obsessions? They’re the special forces of human behaviour. If being single, as I truly believe it is, is a state of siege – you create a set of demands in your mind and refuse to surrender your single status until your Uberbabe comes along – then obsessions are the fifth column who, just when you think you’re safe and in control, scale your walls and burst through your windows with their machine guns blazing. No defence is strong enough to keep them out.

  And that’s how it is with McCullen. Since meeting her, I’ve suffered from an almost continuous barrage of visions of her and visions of being with her. Most worrying of all, many of these visions have been little short of heretical, blatant affronts to the Single Code I’ve chosen to live my life by. I’ve visualised:

  a) Walking down the street with her, holding hands

  b) Lying in bed beside her at dawn, watching her face as she sleeps, at peace

  c) Sitting opposite her at an alcove table in a restaurant, sipping wine and staring into her eyes

  Not, in other words, regularly quoted passages from the Single Guy’s Bible. This said, though, there are other traits of my Uberbabe I doubt she has the potential to fulfil. I can’t, for example, visualise:

  a) Being separated from her for six months by circumstances beyond my control and knowing that she’ll still be there for me when I return

  b) Moving into a flat with her

  c) Asking her to marry me

  But, in spite of this knowledge, she comes closer to being my Uberbabe than anyone I’ve met since I split with Zoe. And, right now, close is close enough.

  ‘Are we done for today, then?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah. Thanks. You’ve been very patient.’

  She picks up the towel and wraps it round her. ‘So what happens now?’

  A good question. And one which I’ve spent a considerable amount of time addressing over the last few hours. The answer I want to give goes somewhere along the lines of, ‘I don’t have to leave for Matt’s party for another three hours, so why don’t we put them to good use by hitting the sack?’ But, meanwhile, back in the City of London, Planet Earth, McCullen has given no indication over the course of the day that this is a request she’ll readily oblige. So instead, I settle for something a little more ambiguous.

  ‘Well, we could crack open a bottle of wine …’

  She smiles. ‘No, I don’t mean now as in now now. I mean with the painting. It’s not finished, is it? So you’ll need me to come back for another sitting, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh, right. Sure. Yeah.’ Like I know that’s what she meant. ‘A couple more sittings should do it. If you can bear it, that is.’

  ‘No problem. It’s been fun.’ She massages her shoulder with her hand. ‘Apart from the aches and pains.’

  ‘You didn’t get bored?’

  ‘No, you’re good company. I suppose you’re used to it, keeping people entertained while they sit for you.’

  This is better. We get on. She likes me.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose I am,’ I say. ‘And the wine? I’ve got a bottle in the fridge, if you’re interested …’

  She considers this proposition for a couple of seconds, then says, ‘No, I’d better get going. Got the in-laws to deal with tonight.’

  My stomach lurches. Before I can stop myself, I blurt out, ‘In-laws? Don’t tell me you’re—’

  She laughs, flicks her hair back from her face. ‘Married? God, no. They’re not real in-laws. Just my boyfriend’s parents. It’s his mother’s birthday.’

  The B-word. I might have known. I can’t believe she hasn’t mentioned him before.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.’ The disappointment is there in my voice. I try to sound sociable, and enquire, ‘Long term?’

  ‘Three years.’

  ‘Serious, then?’

  ‘Guess so.’

  There’s a slight hesitation in her voice. Enough to make me probe further. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but doesn’t it bother him, you posing naked for me?’

  ‘Well, it would if he knew.’

  We both smile. ‘I see.’

  ‘I mean, it shouldn’t. It’s not like there’s anything funny going on. It’s not like I’m being unfaithful, or anything like that.’

  ‘So why not tell him?’

  ‘Because he’d just end up getting insecure and jealous. It’s just not worth the grief.’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, crossing the room to go and get dressed, ‘very much.’

  OK, so matters aren’t exactly following the traditional seduction script. It’s more like starting on the final page and reading back. The object of my desire has gone from naked to towel-wrapped and is now getting dressed and will shortly leave. And, what’s more, she’s just told me in no uncertain terms that she’s in a three-year relationship with a man she’s in love with. And very much in love with at that.

  This would be enough to knock most people’s obsessions cold. But not mine. I focus on the one flicker of hope in an otherwise dark universe: the fact that she’s prepared to deceive the man she loves to be with me. And that she’s going to repeat the deception next week. Sure, as signals go, it’s more of a nod in a crowded room than a red flare bursting in the night sky, but it still means I’m in with a chance. Conclusion: her turning down my offer of wine to be with her boyfriend is a bad rejection, but there’s always next week …

  And on the ego front, it’s not like I haven’t suffered worse before.

  * * *

  Confessions: No.2 Virginity

  Place: Mary Rayner’s parents’ house.

  Time: 6 p.m. 15 May 1988.

  Mary: ‘Have you got one?’

  Me: ‘Yeah.’

  Mary: ‘Well, are you going to put it on, or what?’

  Me: ‘Yeah, of course.’

  Mary: ‘It looks kind of funny.’

  Me: ‘It’s curry-flavoured.’

  Mary: ‘That’s disgusting.’

  Me: ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  Mary: ‘Jesus, it stinks.’

  Me: ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  Mary: ‘Haven’t you got anything else?’

  Me: ‘No, it’s all the machine had.’

  Mary: ‘Okay, then. Put it on.’

  Me: ‘Okay.’

  Mary: ‘Where are you going?’

  Me: ‘The bathroom.’

  Mary: ‘What for?’

  Me: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Mary: ‘Happy now?’

  Me: ‘Yeah.’

  Mary: ‘Come here, then.’

  Me: ‘Okay.’

  Mary: ‘Ouch.’

  Me: ‘Sorry.’

  Mary: ‘Here, let me help you.’

  Me: ‘Thanks.’

  Mary: ‘You haven’t done this before, have you?’

  Me: ‘Yeah, loads of times.’

  Mary: ‘Liar.’

  Me: ‘Not.’

  Mary: ‘There, that’s better.’

  Me: ‘There?’

  Mary: ‘Yeah, right there …’

  Real-time description of the act itself: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirt
een, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twent—’

  Mary: ‘Is that it?’

  Me: ‘Yeah, how was I?’

  Mary: ‘Crap.’

  * * *

  Matt’s Party

  Unsurprisingly, things didn’t last long with Mary Rayner. Longer than nineteen and a half seconds, sure, but not much. I stayed over at her house that night and we had sex the following morning, and this time I managed to last the length of one commercial for Diet Coke and three songs – though, technically, as I later pointed out to Matt, I could claim six, since the second song was ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ – all courtesy of Capital Radio. Even Mary had to concede that under her expert tuition I’d graduated from ‘crap’ to ‘okay’ in the space of twenty-four hours. The future looked bright. I was pleased. My mission had been reasonably successfully accomplished. We left her house before lunch, snogged outside Ealing Broadway tube station and then I headed back to Bristol. I called her once after that, but she didn’t call back. I never heard from her again.

  Nostalgia-wise, I’d like to think that it was circumstances that kept us apart – her living in London, me living in Bristol, both of us too skint to afford the train fare on a regular basis, both of us too wrapped in studying for our A-levels to afford the time to get to know each other better. But it wasn’t. What it actually came down to was, quite simply, that Mary had had better and I’d never had it so good. We both moved on for different reasons: Mary, because she didn’t want to settle for ‘crap’, or even ‘okay’; and me, because I’d been initiated into a wondrous new world, and now that I’d managed it with one girl (twice), I wanted to try it with more girls (as many times as possible).

  As rites of passage went, it was a rough crossing, but well worth the ride. Everything changed after that weekend in London. I returned to Bristol packed with confidence, shut myself in the kitchen with the phone and called Matt. I told him everything, and then he made me tell him everything all over again. And though I tried to hide it from my voice, I relished every moment.

  The Monday after, Matt walked Laura Riley, a girl in his maths class who he’d fancied for months without ever having had the bottle to tell her, home from school and kissed her by the bus stop on her street. He asked her out. Two weeks later, his parents went to the Lake District for the weekend and Matt and Laura lost their virginity to one another in the bottom half of the bunk-bed he’d slept in since his seventh birthday.

  That Matt lost his virginity so soon after me might have been down to coincidence, but I doubt it. Competition is a more likely theory. Or, rather, the competitive streak that’s always coloured our friendship. Post-puberty and pre-Mary, I’d say that seventy per cent of our conversations revolved around the discussion of sex on a theoretical level. How did we get it? What was it going to be like when we did? Once I’d uncovered the answers to both these questions, our friendship was no longer based on an equality of ignorance. The see-saw shifted, with Matt, the boy, looking up at me, the man, and me looking down at him through the eyes of experience. The only way available for him to restore the balance that had previously existed between us – to even the scores, so to speak – was to score himself. So he did. With Laura Riley. In his bunk-bed.

  Of course, it didn’t stop there. I met someone else, the see-saw shifted again, and he broke up with Laura and caught me up. Aside from the fifteen months he went out with Penny Brown, which – coincidentally, of course – occurred over the same period I was going out with Zoe, I don’t think we’ve stopped competing ever since. And chances are that tonight – I open the door to BarKing, Matt’s chosen venue for his birthday celebrations – will prove no different. We’re both single. We’re both on the pull. And even though we no longer have anything left to prove and our friendship has evolved beyond the point of who’s done what first, sports-wise we’ll both still be looking to tip the see-saw back in our favour. A one-night stand. No complications. Just another chalk mark on the board. A bit of harmless fun.

  I scope the bar for faces I recognise, and for faces I like the look of. BarKing is a renowned target-rich environment, which is why Matt chose to come here. It doesn’t advertise itself as a Singles Bar, but effectively that’s what it is. By design, it’s noisy and busy and the few tables available seat twelve. Not somewhere, in other words, that’s likely to be awarded many stars in The Couples’ Guide to Intimate London Night Spots.

  The cursory visual inspection confirms that this is the case tonight: one stag party, one hen party, and a lot of smaller gender-segregated groups in between. You can count the engagement and wedding rings on show on one hand, and I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s already done just that. Looks vary, but the dress code boils down to a common residue: labelled clothes and groomed hair and faces. People are here to advertise themselves in the hope of finding a buyer. And I, thanks to Matt’s wardrobe, blend in just fine. Matt has been here, we worked out, ten times before and has pulled on two occasions, giving him a twenty per cent success rate. This is my sixth visit and I’ve pulled once, giving me an equal rating. As far as BarKing is concerned, the see-saw is even.

  So far …

  I spot Matt at a table on the far side of the room, but instead of immediately threading my way through the maze of bodies to reach him, I pull back to the bar and order a bottle of Bud for myself and a traditionally spiked birthday cocktail for Matt. While I wait for Matt’s witch’s brew to be mixed, I survey his group. Matt’s not big on birthdays, favouring the just-a-good-excuse-to-get-drunk-with-your-friends approach, rather than anything more organised. Chloe is there, our right-hand girl, but Bradshaw, I’m relieved to say, is not. Then there are Andy and Will and Jenny, some of Matt’s work mates, Carla, Sue and Mike, who Matt was at Uni with, and Mark and Tim, who have come up from Bristol for the weekend.

  There are only a few people I haven’t met before – obviously the ‘extras’ Matt referred to in the kitchen this morning. Of these, two are guys, three are girls. Of the girls, only one doesn’t immediately set the psycho and moose alarm bells ringing. She’s sitting on Matt’s left. She’s in profile. She looks good. Matt spots me and waves, shouts something that gets swallowed up by the babel of voices between us. I wave back, then check out Mystery Girl one more time, before turning to pay for the drinks.

  A friend of mine called Paddy once summed up the basic dilemma faced by single guys when out on the pull something like this:

  The way I see it, you’ve got two options: short term and long term.

  Short term, you set out with the attitude that all you want to do is get laid. That means you’re duty-bound to go for closure with every woman you think you’ve got a chance with. So you chat them up and you see whether they’re up for it or not. Say they start banging on about the fact that they don’t sleep around, or hate being single, or are fed up wasting their time on guys who are too immature to commit to a relationship – then you cut the conversation cold and you move on to someone else. And you move on and you move on, until you meet someone who, if she hasn’t just said yes already, has given you enough pointers for you to conclude that she soon will.

  Then there’s option two: the long term. The defining difference between this and option one is that here you think with your brain as well as your dick. The approach is the same. You see someone you like and you chat them up. Only here, if you like what you hear as well as what you see – and, let’s face it, at the end of the day, long term, it’s the mind inside the body that really matters – then you don’t blow her out of the water just because she isn’t going to get her kit off with you before dawn. Instead, you think, Hey, I like this person. This is someone I’d like to get to know better. And so you try. You do all the old-fashioned stuff: you swap phone numbers, you call her up, you fix a date, and you take things from there.

  And it’s something you’ve got to decide right from the start of the night. The two options are mutually exclusive. Choose option one and whoever you pull, you pull because in yo
ur head they equal sex. Chances are you won’t be able to think of them in any other way after that. Choose option two and you’ve got to resign yourself to the fact that, for tonight at least, you’re probably going home alone.

  Paddy got married two months back, so it’s not hard to suss out which option he chose. Me, I’m still in the habit of taking option one.

  I reach the table and there’s a series of all rights and hellos and how-the-hell-are-yous from the various people assembled, depending on how long it’s been since I’ve seen them. The Mystery Girl’s chair is empty, but a coat is hanging on its back. I reach Matt and place his birthday cocktail before him. He’s groaning before it even hits the table.

  ‘Jesus,’ he mutters, staring at the lugubrious, curdled mixture, ‘when are we going to grow out of this shit?’

  ‘When we’re old and married.’

  Resigned to the fact that neither dotage nor marriage are possibilities in the near future, Matt picks up the glass and downs its contents.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ I say, handing over a caricature of him I’ve had framed.

  He looks at it and laughs, passes it down the table. ‘Nice one. Thanks. Here,’ he tells me, wiping his lips and lighting a cigarette, pushing Mystery Girl’s chair across and creating a space next to him, ‘grab yourself a chair.’

  By the time I’ve managed to find a spare chair and get back to the table, Mystery Girl has returned. I push my chair in next to hers and sit down.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, turning to face her, ‘I’m Jack.’

  2

  Amy

  OH GOD.

  This can’t be happening.

  It can’t be possible for one human being to feel this bad.

  I can hear a strange wheezing sound which must mean that I’m breathing (nothing short of a miracle having smoked approximately 4,000 fags last night). However, I have a nasty suspicion that I’m going to have a brain haemorrhage if I don’t get up.

  This is easier said than done. Overnight, I’ve developed jelly joints. In one slick move, I manage to trip over my discarded fuck-me boots, stub my toe on the radiator pipe, and whilst hopping in agony, lose my balance, lurch head-first through my plastic bead door and concertina into the tea chest in the living room.