Brand New Friend (28 page)

‘You don’t love him.’ He looked at Jo. ‘You might think you do but you don’t. I can’t understand why you don’t see you’re worth a million Seans. You deserve someone better.’

‘Like you?’ asked Jo, suddenly flaming with anger. ‘Because I can do much better than falling in love with someone
like
you. How about
being
in love with you? Happy now?’

Rob couldn’t believe what he had heard. ‘You’re in love with me?’

‘There’s no need to sound so surprised.’

‘Look, I—’

‘It’s not your fault,’ she interrupted. ‘You didn’t lead me on. I know that. I’ve learned that you can’t help who you fall in love with. No matter how hard you try or what rules you set up, things happen. And being in love with you hurts far more than the worst times I’ve had with Sean.’

‘But how long—’

‘I don’t know. I think I must have known on some level since the night we first met. But the last time you stayed here was when I really began to feel unsure. That was why I slept with David. I thought if I could do that it would mean that I wasn’t in love with you – that we could go back to being friends – and it worked for a while. I suppose I’m good at fooling myself. Phil guessed how I felt that evening after your engagement party but promised to keep it to himself. That was when I knew I was in trouble but I didn’t know what to do for the best.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘That’s because there’s nothing
to
say. Soon it won’t matter anyway. I’m back with Sean now, and we’re going to stay together for good.’

‘When did all this happen?’ asked Rob.

‘Last night,’ replied Jo. ‘I stayed in, opened a bottle of wine and felt sorry for myself. I even decided to go to bed early in the hope of sleeping through the whole thing but then the doorbell rang. I know it was silly but I convinced myself it was you. That you’d realised how I felt about you and had come back from holiday to tell me you wanted to be with me. I couldn’t have been more surprised when I saw it was Sean. He told me he’d missed me. He told me he’d changed. He said he hadn’t realised how much he loved me until now. And while I’m not sure I believe him, I’m prepared to give him another chance. I know I might not love him the way I love you but that doesn’t matter any more. The truth is I just can’t walk away from love – even the imperfect kind – any more. I don’t feel I’ve got the luxury of choice. Sean’s talking about marriage, kids, the whole works. He even suggested we move to London for a fresh start. How can I turn that down?’

‘If he’s what you want then I’m happy for you,’ said Rob. ‘And if he’s really changed, well, he’s what I want for you too . . . because friends want what’s best for each other. And I do love you, as a friend. It’s not a second-best kind of love. Or a consolation prize. It’s the real thing but different. A different kind of love.’

‘That would be fine if it were true for both of us,’ said Jo, ‘but it’s not. I love you but not just as your friend. Anyway, none of this matters any more because we can’t carry on seeing each other.’

‘I know Sean and I have clashed quite a bit. But things don’t have to be awkward between us – I’m prepared to apologise and start afresh with him,’ said Rob.

‘That’s not it.’

‘Then what? We can work something out, surely.’

‘No, we can’t,’ said Jo. ‘And I’d be fooling no one if I said we could. The fact is I’m in love with you. But the difference between today and yesterday is that the man I’m going to try to make a life with knows how I feel about you – which changes everything because I’d never be able to hide it from him. We can’t be friends any more, Rob. It really is over.’

‘It’s a bit busy in here tonight,’ said Neil, as he approached the bar.

‘You’re right,’ said Rob, ‘but that’s Friday nights for you.’

It was eight o’clock on a Friday night in March and Rob and Neil had just arrived at BlueBar. Rob automatically scanned the room for any sign of Jo or Sean, as was now his habit, but they weren’t there.

‘I just remembered I’ve got these,’ said Neil, and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out a pair of tickets and handed one to Rob.

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Rob. ‘I thought the gig had sold out.’

‘Remember, it’s not
what
you know but
who
,’ said Neil, tapping the side of his nose. ‘I’ve got a mate who’s got a mate who works at the Academy and he sorted us out.’

‘Well, tell your mate’s mate that there’s a beer with his name on it should I get to meet him.’

‘It should be good,’ said Neil, clearly pleased that he had impressed Rob. ‘The queue’s gone down a bit. Better get in there while it’s quiet. Carlsberg?’

‘Spot on the money, mate,’ replied Rob.

The two men continued talking casually at the bar until they were joined by two others, whom Neil introduced as Gavin and Sanjiv. They all shook hands and said how busy the bar was while Neil ordered more drinks. By the time they had been poured yet more of his friends had arrived and Rob was introduced to Daniel, Paolo, Johnny and Jonesy. While Neil added to his ever-expanding drinks order Rob listened politely to the others talk football.

‘They’ve announced the England squad for next week’s qualifier,’ said Sanjiv.

‘I saw it in the paper this morning,’ said Paolo, ‘and I was stunned. They couldn’t have picked worse if they’d tried.’

‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ said Johnny. ‘We’re going to lose. You can just feel it.’

‘How can you say that?’ exclaimed Jonesy. ‘We’ve done okay in the last couple of matches we’ve played.’

‘You’re joking!’ groaned Gavin. ‘All we’ve done is play teams on worse form than ours. It’s the only way we ever win anything.’ He turned to Rob. ‘What do you reckon, Rob? Are you a football man?’

Rob gave his usual answer to the question: he was an armchair football fan but rarely went to the terraces. As the conversation moved on and he was then called upon to offer an opinion on the state of British rugby, the state of British music and even the state of British TV he suddenly realised that, after all this time and heartache in Manchester, he had finally found a group of men with whom he could have the conversations that mattered to him. And although Neil’s friends weren’t as rough and ready as his own in London, it didn’t matter. They laughed at each other’s jokes, held strong opinions on things that didn’t matter and could tell anecdotes with all the skill and guile of professional stand-up comedians. In the first hour he spent with them Rob laughed, argued and harangued more than he had in months, and it made him feel good again. Suddenly he saw himself on his birthday night, when he had been staring enviously around this bar at all the groups of male friends deep in conversation, and now here he was having conversations about life, sport, music and all the stuff in between without having to resort to asking people what they did for a living or bringing up the topic of rising house prices. And it was all thanks to one thing: a miraculous four-step conversion process.

After leaving Jo’s on New Year’s Day Rob had told himself that all she needed was a few days on her own to get herself together. He was sure she would come to her senses and dump Sean. Although he had told her he was prepared to give Sean another chance, he hadn’t meant it. To Rob, the situation he found himself in was Sean’s fault. If Sean hadn’t done his about-turn, Jo wouldn’t have told Rob she was in love with him and they could have continued as good friends.

He checked and double-checked as to whether he had led her on at any point in their friendship – and realised that their relationship had become a textbook definition of ‘grey area’. They had shared a bed twice and he had lost count of the number of times they had touched (hand to face, leg to leg, arm to arm) in a manner that might have suggested to a casual observer that they were a couple.

Their problem, he reasoned, lay in their compatibility. They got on together too well to be just good friends. He could see how Jo might have found herself moving from ‘Should I take things further?’ to ‘Why shouldn’t I take things further?’

He, however, was not confused. He knew he could never betray Ashley, even if he had wanted to, because Rob believed in loyalty. Loyalty to his family, to his friends and to the woman he loved. To betray Ashley would be to betray something at the core of his belief: that you can only expect high standards from those you love if you give the same in return. And Rob had high standards for friends and lovers – which was why he could not compromise even when he was at his most desperate. He believed that the people in his life
were
the best in the world, and having them in his life reflected to the outside world exactly who he was.

He left it a week before he contacted Jo, and because she didn’t return any of the messages he left for her he drove over to her place early on the Saturday morning hoping to talk to her face to face. He could tell she was in because her car was there, and when he was on the door step he could hear the radio in the kitchen, but although he waited for half an hour she didn’t come out. As he drove back to Chorlton, trying to work out what to do next his mobile beeped. Jo had sent him a text message:

Please don’t make this more difficult than it already is. j xxx

It had been hard to come to terms with the end of their friendship. Once again he had found himself in no man’s land without a map, compass or guide. If Jo had been his girlfriend he would have known how to react (several evenings of excessive drinking and a revisitation of the musical canon of Leonard Cohen). If Jo had been a male friend he would still have known what to do (a bit of yelling and shouting, followed by a lifetime of ignoring the issue). But Rob’s relationship with Jo was different: she wasn’t his girlfriend and she wasn’t a male friend. How was a man with a fiancée supposed to behave now that his girl friend was no longer in his life? His natural inclination was to fall into a depression because he missed her. But he couldn’t grieve unless he accepted there was more between them than what he was prepared to admit to himself. When over a fortnight had passed and Ashley asked him what had happened, Rob told her a bare-bones version of the truth: ‘She’s got back with her ex-boyfriend and apparently he’s not really into the idea of his girlfriend hanging out with another bloke.’

‘Can’t you explain to him that nothing’s going on?’ asked Ashley.

‘I don’t think he gets it,’ replied Rob. ‘At least, not like you do.’

After his conversation with Ashley, Rob determined to move his life on without Jo. The following Friday night, when Ashley was working, he showered, shaved and caught a taxi into town. He jumped out by the Corn Exchange and realised he hadn’t put enough thought into how he would spend his evening. He didn’t know where to go – it had to be lively enough to kick-start a good mood yet anonymous enough for him to be able to drink on his own without feeling like a loser. All Bar One – with its nice after-work buzz, its wooden floors and tables – sprang to mind.

An hour later the bar was heaving with people but Rob was the only one drinking alone. He occupied himself with a discarded copy of the
Evening News
, then looked around for a diversion and found one in the shape of two women sitting at a table near him. The woman on the left was attractive, wearing a short green and red striped dress and patent leather high-heeled black boots. The other was just as pretty but in a different way: her jet-black hair was cropped short and she was wearing jeans, a V-necked black cardigan and a black T-shirt. She glanced at Rob, half smiled, then looked away. It lasted a fraction of a second, but Rob decided that that was all the encouragement he needed. Before he knew it, he had set his drink on the bar and was walking towards them.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, kneeling beside their table.

Both women turned to look at him, bemused.

‘Before you start,’ said the first, ‘we spotted you looking at us and whatever you want we’re not interested, okay?’

‘I thought you might say that,’ said Rob.

‘So why are you bothering us? We’ve just come out for a drink and a chat. And you’re wasting your time with us because I’m married and my sister is off men for the foreseeable future.’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ replied Rob. ‘You’re both very attractive but I’m not trying to chat you up.’

‘So what
do
you want?’

‘To be friends.’

‘Can you believe this guy, Leah?’ She laughed. ‘That’s got to be the cheesiest chat-up line I’ve ever heard.’

‘Give him a break, Marissa,’ said the second woman. ‘You have to admit it’s a bit more original than “Get your coat, love, you’ve pulled.” Let’s hear what he’s got to say.’

‘If it’ll make him go away, fine.’

Rob pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Well, first off,’ he began, ‘my name’s Rob, you’re Marissa,’ he gestured to the first woman, ‘and you’re Leah.’

‘Tell me,’ said Marissa, ‘does this technique usually work with the sort of women you chat up? It’s obvious you’ve done this a million times and I bet they really fall for it.’

‘It’s not a technique,’ replied Rob. ‘I used to have a good mate who was a woman.’

‘Really?’ said Marissa sarcastically.

‘Really,’ replied Rob. ‘Her name was Jo.’

‘And where did you meet her?’ asked Marissa.

‘At a party in Didsbury, then again in a pub in Chorlton, but it was complicated in the early days because my girlfriend—’

‘You’ve got a girlfriend?’

‘A fiancée, actually.’

‘And she didn’t mind you being friends with this woman?’

‘At first it was awkward but it all got sorted.’

Marissa laughed. ‘No woman I know would be happy about her boyfriend spending time with another woman.’