Brand New Friend (20 page)

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘I know this all seems a bit over-dramatic, and maybe it is, but I want you to indulge me. Is that okay?’

‘No problem. Which way are we going?’

‘This way,’ said Jo, pointing to the nearest gravestones. ‘Follow me.’

She led Rob through the graves, treading carefully. Occasionally as Rob passed a stone he found his eyes automatically absorbing the name and wondering briefly about its owner’s life. What had Joseph Hallen (husband and father) been like? Had Valerie Chambers (daughter and friend) been a good woman? How might the world have been different if Charles Edgar Morrison (grandfather) hadn’t suddenly been ‘taken’ on 12 August 1977?

After a few minutes Jo stopped in front of a grey marble headstone. In gold lettering it read: ‘Ryan Lewis Richards, 4 January 1968 – 11 March 1995’, and underneath ‘in loving memory’. Rob looked at her. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said.

‘There’s no reason why you should have,’ said Jo.

‘But the way you’ve always talked about him . . .’ began Rob, thinking of when Jo had told him that her brother had described her unpublished novel as the best thing he had ever read, and had become agitated when he had asked to see it.

‘Like he was alive?’ Jo finished his sentence.

Rob nodded.

‘I still talk to him sometimes when I’m on my own. I even write him letters.’

‘About what?’

‘Life in general, how much I miss him. Why I hate my job. Everything, really. I was twenty-four when it happened. I had to go and see a bereavement counsellor because my family thought I was going to lose it completely.’

‘And were you?’

Jo shrugged. ‘Who knows? I couldn’t come to terms with him not being there any more.’

‘It’s understandable,’ said Rob. ‘I don’t know how I’d be if I lost one of my family.’

‘The counsellor told me to write the letters,’ continued Jo. ‘She said it would be a good way to get to grips with what had happened. After I stopped seeing her I carried on writing them because it made me feel better.’

‘You should do whatever makes you happy,’ said Rob.

‘Thanks,’ said Jo, and looped her arm through Rob’s. ‘I knew you’d understand.’

‘What happened to your brother?’ asked Rob.

‘He’d been made redundant from his sales job in London and decided to go travelling with his redundancy money. He met up with some old university friends in Cambodia and a group of them had gone to a party. Afterwards Ryan talked some of his mates into going swimming in a nearby river and they all agreed, even though they’d had quite a lot to drink. They’d only been in the water ten minutes when Ryan’s friends noticed he was missing. They searched the river but it was too late. His body was found two days later.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Rob. ‘It must have been terrible.’

‘It was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,’ she said. ‘Even now it doesn’t seem quite real. For years I tried to make sense of it but I couldn’t. It just seemed so
senseless.
Such a waste. He would’ve done much more with his life than I have. He wouldn’t have stayed in a crappy job he hated. His life would’ve had meaning.’

Back in the car, as Jo started the engine she said quietly, ‘Sean was Ryan’s best friend.’

‘
Really
?’

‘No need to sound so shocked,’ said Jo, smiling. ‘Originally I never understood what Ryan liked about him either. They’d been friends since secondary school but I always thought Sean was a bit of an idiot. He wasn’t there when Ryan died. He’d stayed in Manchester because he had quite a good job in ad sales at the
Evening News.
He was really cut up about losing Ryan. For a long time he couldn’t do enough to help out Mum and Dad. He was always round at ours and . . . Well, from that he and I became friends. I used him as a way of holding on to my brother. He understood – in part – what I was going through, and when I found myself wanting to talk about Ryan years later he was the only person who would listen. My parents stopped talking about Ryan after the first anniversary of his death – as if the pain was too much for them – and then we stopped being a family. My parents split up the year after and moved out of Oldham to make new homes with new partners. That’s why I never spend Christmas Day with either of them because if I do I feel like a reminder of a past they want to forget . . . Anyway, all this time I was still just friends with Sean and then somehow we became a couple. At the time I knew I was making a mistake but I went along with it because it was easier than making the decision not to.’ Jo laughed. ‘How messed up is that? I go out with my brother’s best friend because I don’t know how else to keep his memory alive.’

‘You did what you thought was right at the time,’ said Rob. ‘I don’t think anyone would blame you for that.’

Jo smiled. ‘He would’ve liked you, you know.’

‘Who?’

‘Ryan.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t explain it – except that you see the world a lot like he did. Maybe if he was still alive he would’ve become your new friend, not me.’ She shrugged. ‘Then again maybe not. You can never tell anything with men, can you?’

Rob smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you can.’

It was a week later, and Rob was back in BlueBar for his bloke-date with Nigel Wilshire, the third man who had responded to his personal ad in
City List.
This time he hadn’t worried about his clothes, just went out in what he would have worn if he’d been going for drink with Jo. Deep down, his mind was made up – Jo was the one for him. Still, he got himself a drink, found a table by the window and waited.

‘Rob Brooks?’ said a male voice, rousing him from his thoughts.

Rob looked up – and was ashamed to feel disappointed. There was no way that this man was new-friend material. He had a beard, and underneath his denim jacket he was wearing a T-shirt that stated, ‘IT consultants do IT better’.

Rob considered denying once again that he was Rob Brooks but his conscience wouldn’t let him.

‘Er . . . yeah,’ he replied reluctantly. ‘I’m Rob. And you must be Nigel.’

Nigel put his drink on the table and they shook hands.

‘I’ve never done anything like this before,’ said Nigel, as he settled himself into his chair.

‘Me either,’ lied Rob.

‘Normally I like to chat to people on-line. In fact, even though I say it myself, I have loads of friends on the web. Have you ever been to www.uk.sci-fi-fans-united.org?’

‘No,’ said Rob.

‘Oh,’ said Nigel. ‘I’m very popular there anyway.’

‘Cool,’ replied Rob, but this was getting too weird for him. He decided to inject some normality into the proceedings. ‘Have you come far tonight?’

‘Whalley Range,’ he replied, ‘North Road.’

‘Oh, not too bad,’ said Rob, and Nigel nodded thoughtfully. A hulking pause grew and Rob took a sip of his pint. ‘This weather’s a bit rubbish, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Apparently tomorrow’s going to be like this too,’ said Nigel.

‘Oh,’ replied Rob.

There was another long pause.

‘Well,’ said Nigel, abruptly, when he, too, could take no more of the silence, ‘why don’t I tell you a bit about myself?’

‘Yeah,’ said Rob, ‘why don’t you?’ He took another sip of his pint and thought,
This is going to be a long night.

‘Do you like
Star Trek
?’ asked Nigel, taking Rob by surprise. For the past half an hour he had listened to Nigel’s extensive biography and was begining to feel there was nothing he didn’t know about the man sitting opposite him – but this question revealed that there was one topic on which Nigel had held back.

‘I suppose the original series was okay,’ said Rob, thoughtfully, then added, ‘I always liked the way that the women on the
Enterprise
had to wear those short dresses. Who would’ve thought the future would focus so much on getting a better look at women’s legs?’

‘I didn’t like the original series,’ said Nigel. ‘It was kids’ stuff. But I’m a huge fan of
The Next Generation, Enterprise, Deep Space Nine
and
Voyager.
Far more cerebral.’ He paused, then added, ‘Seven of Nine is my favourite character.’

‘Who or what is Seven of Nine?’

‘She was originally part of the Borg.’

‘Who or what are the Borg?’

Nigel’s face lit up. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘your question should have been, “What are the Borg?” because they’re a cybernetic life form that’s thousands of years old, part organic and part artificial life. Even better, they’re a collective life form.’

‘A what?’ asked Rob.

‘A collective life form,’ repeated Nigel. ‘They are simultaneously one form but made up of multiple forms that are collectively aware but not conscious of themselves as individuals . Which is why they don’t use singular pronouns but refer to themselves as, for example, “Seven of Nine”.’

‘Hmm.’ Rob nodded. ‘Interesting.’

If it had been up to Rob this would have been the point at which he thanked Nigel for his time, stood up and left, but there was no way of extricating himself without embarrassing both of them. For the rest of the evening he let Sci-fi Nigel talk solidly about his
Space 1999
DVD boxed set, the letters column in
SFX
magazine, Terry Pratchett’s
Discworld
series, George Lucas’s beard (and a whole host of
Star Wars
rumours), the first season of
Stargate SGI
versus the second season and, finally, how his perfect woman would be a combination of Faith from
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, Seven of Nine from Star
Trek Voyager
and the original Kochanski from
Red Dwarf.

At the end of the evening Rob looked at the pint of Guinness in front of him as if it were the only drug in the world that might numb the pain, but could barely find the will to lift it to his lips. He couldn’t believe that twenty-four hours earlier he had been sitting in the Lazy Fox with Jo having a different type of evening. A good evening. A fun evening. The kind of evening that didn’t feel like a slow death. Now and then, as Nigel droned on, he would imagine he’d seen Jo out of the corner of his eye, laughing at some thing or returning from the bar with two pints in her hand and a packet of crisps between her teeth, and he’d feel happy. When he realised she wasn’t there everything around him turned grey.

‘So, what do you think?’ said Sci-fi Nigel.

‘Sorry?’ replied Rob, who hadn’t been listening. ‘My concentration lapsed. What did you say?’

‘I was just checking that you’re free for those dates I was talking about.’

‘Which ones?’

‘For the Science Fiction, Nostalgia and Fantasy Convention at the NEC in Birmingham next month.’

‘No,’ replied Rob, firmly.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Sci-fi Nigel, looking confused.

‘I’m really sorry, Nigel,’ he said, ‘but this has all been a hideous mistake.’

‘What has?’

‘You. Me. Sitting in this pub trying to be friends. It’s not working, is it?’

‘But I thought—’

‘Look,’ said Rob, ‘it’s not you, it’s me. I’m not right for you. You need someone who is . . .’ he struggled ‘ . . . more like you.’

‘But you are like me,’ replied Nigel, sadly. ‘I thought you said you liked
The X-Files.
’

‘I’m afraid I only watched the first series, then got bored.’

‘But didn’t you say you liked
The Matrix
too?’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Rob, ‘it was a great film, but the best thing about it was Carrie-Anne Moss in that black latex catsuit.’

‘And you’re not interested in learning Klingon?’

‘It’s not my thing, Nigel,’ said Rob. ‘I’m much more of a pint-and-a-nice-talk-about-life kind of bloke.’

Nigel nodded thoughtfully. ‘It was good to meet you anyway,’ he said philosophically, and gave Rob a four-fingered Vulcan salute. ‘Live long and prosper.’

Overcome by the need to relieve his bladder, Rob headed for the loo. While he was standing at a urinal, keeping his eyes resolutely in front of him, he listened carefully as groups of men came in, laughing, joking and chatting. As they stood at either side of him, and continued their conversations it occurred to him how ridiculous it was that they could be standing next to him with their flies open, yet if he attempted to talk to them he would have been on the receiving end of some very strange looks. Making friends with men is so hard it might as well be impossible, he thought.

With a heavy heart he made his way back to the bar. He looked towards the table where he had sat and saw that Sci-fi Nigel had gone. He walked across the crowded room and stepped outside, breathing in the fresh late-night air. As if from nowhere he felt the urge to jog, and then he was running. In less than a minute he was outside the Buzzy Bee minicab office, and moments later he was in a run-down red Mercedes C-class on his way to Levenshulme and Jo.

A few nights later, Rob climbed into bed next to Ashley, having came to a conclusion. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I know I’ve still got that Patrick guy to meet up with but I think it’s the end of the line for me and these bloke-dates.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve found what I was looking for and there’s no point in pretending I haven’t. I honestly did give it my best shot – you know I did – but it hasn’t worked and it never will. So, from now on I’m going to be hanging out with Jo, okay? And I promise you there’s nothing to worry about because it’s you I love and no one else.’

‘I know you’ve done your best,’ said Ashley, ‘and I trust you completely. I’ve been selfish, that’s all, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this sooner. I want you to invite Jo round again next Thursday, and I promise I’ll be on my best behaviour. Then, hopefully, we can put all this rubbish behind us. Is that a deal?’

‘Yeah,’ said Rob, leaning forward to kiss her. ‘It’s a deal.’