Come Together Read online

  The nothing, though … the nothing’s the tricky bit. The nothing comes as a surprise. The nothing’s – well, it’s just too honest. I mean, there are meant to be rules to this game we’re playing. There’s a manual and inside the manual there are regulations. There are things single people do and things they don’t. They do:

  a) Meet someone at a party and click with them and file them as an Option in the Pend folder marked PSM (Potential Shag Material)

  b) From time to time, find themselves on a Friday night, mateless and dateless, and flick through the PSM folder in search of an Option

  c) Occasionally decide to call said Option up and suggest a meet

  But they don’t:

  a) Answer the phone in person at any time, because they understand that answerphones, like Rottweilers, are there to guard them from unwanted intrusions into their lives

  b) Pick up the phone on a Friday night if they’re in alone, thereby making whoever’s called think their social life’s just been read its last rites

  c) Confirm this impression by using the word ‘Nothing’ when asked what their plans are for the night

  And we’re meant to abide by these Rules of Engagement, because they’ve been designed to protect our status as Single People. They constitute our Declaration of Independence and it’s our duty to endorse them at all times.

  Only my rules, Amy, obviously aren’t yours. With one word, you’ve gone and ripped the manual up. You’ve chucked me on the hot spot. In bare feet. And you’ve left me there with no choice but to convert your nothing into a something. I reach for a cigarette.

  ‘Well,’ I say, perching on the edge of the armchair, ‘I had this thing where I was meant to be working tonight. Got some portrait I swore I’d finish by Sunday in time for this guy’s fiftieth birthday. Only I finished it about an hour ago and … and … I don’t know … It was good meeting you last week. We had a laugh, you know, and I thought maybe we should do it again. So, I thought I’d give you a call. On the off chance. See what you’re up to, kind of thing …’

  ‘Are you asking me out for a date, Jack?’

  Direct. Fine, I can do direct, too. ‘Well, yeah, that’s one way of looking at it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay as in you’re considering it, or okay as in yeah, let’s do it?’

  ‘Okay as in I’ve considered it, and okay as in yeah, let’s do it.’

  I smile at her mimicking me. ‘Okay, I’ll sort out a restaurant. We can go for a drink first, if you like.’

  ‘I like.’

  I smile again. ‘You know Zack’s?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘See you there round eight?’

  ‘Okay, see you there.’

  At first, when I replace the phone receiver, I can’t help feeling like I’m slipping a six shooter back into a holster after a gunfight. However, apart from a slightly increased heartbeat, I’m A-OK. I’ve survived a Live Phone Conversation. And it went well. Amy was friendly, pleased to hear from me. I asked her out for a date and she said yes. We’re going to meet up. Tonight. So it’s a result. Billy the Kid 1. Calamity Jane 0.

  But then the realisation hits me: My God, I’m going on A Date. A Date, for Christ’s sake. As in drinks and dinner. As in hours of small talk with someone I hardly know. As in the kind of evening I quit doing once I realised there were other, less complicated paths to sex.

  What the hell am I playing at?

  Be calm.

  I pull heavily on my cigarette and try to convince myself that this is not as bad as it looks. Amy’s nice. She’s attractive. She’s fun. Plus, I do want to see her. Why else would I have called? And it’s not like I don’t know her. After all, I spent the best part of a night with her, didn’t I? And she’s keen. And if she’s agreed to see me, she can’t be as keen on Matt as she made out. So this is a perfectly natural thing to be doing.

  I sort of blame Chloe for the bizarre direction my evening’s heading in. I stare at the piece of paper in my hand: Chloe’s handwriting; Amy’s number. Chloe palmed it off on me on Monday, after she’d grown bored of me grumbling about the still unresolved McCullen situation. She said I should give Amy a call, reckoned I was just frustrated and a good, uncomplicated shag would simmer me down. And then Amy – at least, I’m pretty sure it was Amy – phoned up and left a weird and brief message on Wednesday night. Her getting my number must have been down to Chloe. Can’t think of anyone else who’d dare. She’s always pulling stunts like that with me and Matt, making sure her boys are happy. And we return the favour, set her up from time to time with blokes we know.

  Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t make more sense if Chloe and I just cut out the middle men and women and gave each other a go. It’s not like I’ve never considered it and it’s not like we don’t flirt. I talked it through with Matt one time just after I’d split with Zoe. We’d got drunk with Chloe the night before and she’d crashed next to me in my bed. Matt had woken us up with coffee in the morning and found Chloe cradled in my arms. Once she’d gone home, he asked me if anything had happened and I told him no. Then he asked me why not, and I told him that I loved her, but could never fall in love with her. Same as for him, she was my friend. There’d be too much pressure on us to make it work. And, besides, I already knew her too well. What would there be left to discover? I don’t know whether he believed me. I wasn’t even sure if I believed myself.

  I look across the living room and check the old Marlboro clock above the bar: six-thirty. Things to do, things to be …

  I go up to Matt’s bedroom and pull open his wardrobe door and for the thousandth time count myself lucky for having a best friend who doesn’t have a sharing problem. Got to hand it to the guy. There are clothes in here for every occasion: dinner jackets, tails and suits, labelled shirts and jeans and jumpers. Coming here’s like hitting the shops with an AmEx gold card: you just take your pick. (Always ensure your flat-mate has the same build as you.) I just pray that, with all those fat-boy City lunches he indulges in, he doesn’t go turning into a bloater. That would be me scuppered on the clothes front. Probably have to resort to a lard-based diet to match his weight. Either that, or get a real job and an AmEx card of my own. And until the end of this year – the deadline I’ve given myself for making a success of my painting – that just isn’t going to happen. I select some stuff and hit the bathroom.

  A lot of girls I know regard personal hygiene as a gender issue: girls are into it, guys aren’t. End of story. They are, to a degree, correct. Leave a guy on his own for a year. Cut him off from civilisation and, more importantly, the prospect of sex. Do all this and there’s a pretty good chance he’ll go to seed. Socks and underpants will be worn in rotation, unwashed until they start to itch, or their smell starts to rival the crust of unwrapped cheese in the fridge. Small Saharas of dust will creep unnoticed across the surfaces. The stove will come to resemble a road kill as the pan splashes pile up. And ridges of black dirt will threaten to prise finger and toenails free from their digits.

  That said, though, put the same guy back in his normal habitat and the story’s plot takes a different turn. Give him a date with a ten per cent chance of a lay and he’ll be racking up more deodorants and body lotions than Cleopatra. The point, I suppose, is this: with guys, hygiene is a sex thing. You get clean, you get laid. It’s that simple. Take young guys, guys at the stage of evolution where they still think that if the socks aren’t running away, they’re safe to wear. These guys don’t care how mucky they get. Put them within a hundred yards of a dog’s turd and, chances are, they’ll end up rolling in it. It’s only when they hit sexual maturity that they get with the programme. They notice that when they stink, girls think they suck. Crap at mathematics, as they may be, they’re suddenly capable of working out the following complex series of equations themselves: Bad breath and mucky teeth = No kissing; Poor lower body hygiene = No sex.

  And I’m no different. Take tonight. And not just a ten per cent chance, either. The way I see it,
it’s more like fifty per cent. Play my cards right and tonight might conclude with a quick stroll down Sure Thing Avenue to Kit-Off Manor. And to ensure that this is the case, I do the hygiene thing. Big Time. I shower, scrub, shave, sort my hair, brush and floss my teeth, clean my ears, trim my nails, rub in body lotion and stroke on aftershave. Then I dress: Calvins (a.k.a. Pulling Pants); clean socks; and Matt’s clothes (clean and ironed, as always). I check myself out in the mirror, smile as I will at Amy later on over dinner. And my overall impression? I’m convinced. So let’s hope she is, too.

  Downstairs, I fix myself a beer and chuck on a CD. Zack’s is only round the corner, so there’s no rush. All that’s left to do is choose a restaurant and book it. Somewhere fun and, out of necessity, not too expensive. Somewhere we can relax and have a laugh. Or, rather, that would be all that was left to do if I hadn’t already done it. But I have. Four hours ago, before I even thought of giving Amy a call. Four hours ago, towards the end of my second session with McCullen. Four hours ago, when I decided to book a table at Hot House, guessing that it was the kind of place McCullen would think hip. Four hours ago, about one hour before I realised for the second time in two weeks that she still wasn’t up for it.

  Mount McCullen: Base Camp

  McCullen rang the doorbell round ten this morning. This time I was ready for her. No Catherine Bradshaw lurking demoniacally by the bus stop. No sleep deprivation tying up my tongue. No hangover pulsing in my brain. Nothing, in other words, to hinder my second attempt at the conquest of Mount McCullen.

  When I opened the door, she kissed me (on the cheek) and even went so far as to give me a quick hug (platonic). This was encouraging. Not the height of pash, sure, but First Contact nonetheless. And inside, she was all smiles, too. No apprehension and twitchy fingers and furrowed brow, like last week. A quick coffee, some chit-chat about a party she’d been to with Kate, a bit of gossip here, a bit of slagging off there. Just like we’d known each other for years. Then through to the studio, where she stripped without a trace of inhibition, before taking up her pose on the sofa. And if all this was good, what came later, as we broke for a mid-afternoon drink in the garden, was better.

  The sun glared down like a headlight from the clear blue sky: blinding. McCullen, wearing nothing more than a towel (mine) and pair of Ray Bans (Matt’s), was sitting next to me on one of the three wooden benches in the garden. Four recently emptied beer bottles lay on the yellowing grass by our bare feet, sparkling in the sun. A disc of shade, cast by the Bud parasol which mushroomed out of the centre of the old pub table in front of us, cooled our skin. Between us, resting on the wooden slats of the bench, was an ice box, packed with beers. I pulled two out and flipped their tops against the table’s edge, passed one to McCullen and raised the other to my lips, drank.

  I turned to face her, watched her light a cigarette and stare across the garden. For the first time, I saw freckles on her face. It wasn’t surprising I hadn’t noticed them before, even after all the time I’d spent studying her indoors. There had, after all, been other bodily features which had drawn my attention. They were faint. Not the loud kind that tempted you to pull out a pen and join the dots, but the kind you worried the merest gust of wind might blow away like confetti. Her head turned and, not wanting to be caught staring, I lowered my eyes and gazed down at the fine hairs showing on my thighs at the bottom of my shorts.

  There was no doubt about it. This was perfect. This was a Moment. Serene. There was me. And there was her. And there was sun and there was beer. I hadn’t been able to afford a holiday abroad for three years, but this was the kind of situation I’d imagined over all those cold winter nights with no warm body to hold close to mine. These were the kind of colours that had washed the blues away. And, even if it hadn’t been McCullen’s face I’d pictured there beside me on the beach, it hadn’t been far off.

  ‘So,’ I said, turning back to face her, ‘tell me about your man.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just curious, that’s all.’

  Which, obviously, was far from being the whole truth and nothing but.

  There are two schools of thought on raising the topic of partners with someone you’ve got your sights set on. There’s your Passive School and there’s your Active. The former supports the theory that the less you mention the other person’s partner, the less they think about them. And, once they’re no longer thinking about them, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t just be thinking about you. And once that’s happened, you’re in. And then there’s your Active. Cut to the chase. Raise the boyfriend subject for debate and you’re going to know pretty quick exactly what it is you’re up against. I’m more into that. It saves time.

  She smiled. I don’t know whether it was because she’d guessed I was making a pass and was embarrassed, or because just thinking about him had that effect. Naturally, I hoped it was the former.

  ‘I don’t know where to start.’

  ‘How about the beginning? A very good place. It worked for Julie Andrews, anyway.’

  So she told me. She told me that his name was Jonathan, but everyone called him Jons. She told me how they met at school when she was seventeen. She told me he was handsome and sang in a band. And just when I was reaching for a sick bag and cursing skipping Professor Passive’s lectures, Luke Skywalker suddenly underwent a remarkable transformation into Darth Vader. McCullen’s smile switched to a frown and she drew back the curtain on the Dark Side: the coke habit which he couldn’t afford; the paranoia; the way, being at university up in Glasgow, he kept tabs on her, insisted on them hooking up every weekend; the way he dirted her friends; the fact that he’d freak if he ever found out that she was modelling for me.

  It’s funny how sometimes bad can be good. The worse she made him sound, the better I knew my chances were. Jesus, I almost came round to liking the guy.

  And then she said, ‘I don’t know, sometimes I wonder why I’m still with him.’

  Which made me think: Houston, we no longer have a problem.

  But then she said, ‘That’s stupid. I didn’t mean that. I love him.’ She glanced accusingly at her beer bottle, slowly shook her head. ‘Alcohol and sun. Always spaces me out. Forget I said that.’

  Which made me think: Ground Control to Major Tom. Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong.

  And so I went for the ultimatum, threw her into what I refer to as The Worst Case Scenario: the prospect of marriage. ‘You think you’ll end up marrying him?’ I asked.

  She shrugged. I couldn’t blame her; I would have done the same thing if faced with such a predicament. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe. Not yet, though.’

  ‘Why?’

  She considered this for a few seconds, then said, ‘Too young, I suppose.’

  ‘He your first real boyfriend?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘First guy you’ve stayed with for a long time,’ I fished.

  ‘First and only …’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘There’s never been anybody else.’

  I have to admit I was shocked. ‘You’re kidding?’

  She turned to face me, looked me in the eyes. ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you ever …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, wonder … Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like with another guy?’

  She leant forward, ground her cigarette out on the lawn. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Which times?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  And I gave her the look, the one where your eyes do all the talking for you. ‘Times like now?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  And that was it. She was hooked. I smiled, narrowed my eyes, went for closure. ‘Maybe yes, or maybe no?’

  ‘Maybe I don’t know.’ She lit another cigarette. Smoke drifted from her lips. ‘What about you? You got a girlfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  And we sat there, staring at each other as she finished her cigarette and I finished
my beer. The thing was this: sure, McCullen had yet to make a firm decision about me, but she was close, close enough to make me tingle. But if not now, then when? Tonight? It had to be tonight. Looking at her now, I couldn’t bear the thought of it being any later. Restaurant. More talk. More word games. Then decision.

  By that time I was running my eyes up and down her body and wishing she wasn’t wearing a towel. And then I realised that sometimes you can be your own genie: you can make your own wishes come true.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘break’s over. Let’s get back to work.’

  And that’s exactly what we did. Whilst McCullen settled back on the sofa, I went through to the kitchen, picked up the phone and blew out the party I was going to with Matt and instead booked a table for two at Hot House. Sussed as I thought I was, though, what I didn’t realise was that McCullen was even more into the extended flirt than I’d guessed. Forget me putting my desire on hold for a few hours, this was going to be a serious campaign. Later on, her reply to my invitation to dinner said it all:

  ‘That’s a sweet thought, but not tonight. Jons is down from Glasgow tomorrow and I’ve got to be up early to meet him at the station.’

  And after she’d kissed me goodbye on the doorstep (again on the cheek), and I’d watched her walk down the street, I realised that my problem was that, when it came down to it, even though she was definitely into me, she was still into Jons. And until she was more into me than him, I didn’t rate my chances of getting into her. Physically, that is. It was going to be a case of watch this space. Which I would.

  With binoculars.

  Day and night.

  Without rest.

  It wouldn’t be the first waiting game I’d played.