Charlotte Street (11 page)

Dev was back an hour later and humming a strange tune.

‘It’s “Bo
jesteś Ty
” by Krzysztof Krawczyk,’ he said, before adding, ‘I have no idea what I just said.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘Love. Endless, yearning, aching love. The kind of love only a man in a videogame shop can have for a Polish waitress called Pamela. What you been up to?’

‘Gary came round.’

Dev’s face fell. But secretly, he loves stuff like this.

‘What did he want?’

‘To sort things out. Make sure there’s no bad blood. Call me buddy.’

‘He’s
brilliant
, is Gary. Enigmatic.’

‘But also – I think – to unnerve me.’

‘How so?’

‘He paused.’

‘He paused?’

‘He paused. On purpose. Started to tell me something. Then paused. Then didn’t tell me.’

‘Sometimes people pause. Sometimes I pause.’

‘You
press
pause. And this wasn’t just a pause. It was a notable pause.’

‘Sometimes I pause notably. I paused notably just the other night. People took note as I paused. I wouldn’t worry about it.’

‘I just think—’

‘Don’t think. If you think, you’ll never truly get over her. Thinking just extends things.’

So I decided not to think.

Upstairs, I finished my Bob & Alex review (3 out of 5) and stared at the screen.

Enigmash-up: A Journey through the Ego to the Id via You, Me & They
.

The cursor blinked at me, as surprised by the sentence as I’d been.

What the hell was I going to write about?

I studied the leaflet. Lots of inappropriate words were in bold and there were too many exclamation marks.

‘Kaiko Kakamara is one of Britain’s most surprising new artists!! His vision and tenacity have set the scene on fire, and his fans include …’

I suddenly lost the will to live and exhaled, heavily. Art is subjective, no? So my opinion is valid whatever. But is it valid even if I haven’t seen the exhibition?

Yes, I think it is. I began to type.

With fans including …

And ten minutes later, I emailed it off.

I sat back in my chair and thought about Gary. Why had he paused? And what would he have thought if he’d known I’d had a stranger’s photos?

And then my phone rang. It was Zoe.

‘Hello, dickhead. How are the words coming on?’

‘Emailed them off a moment ago.’

‘What did you think?’

‘You’ll find out!’

‘Of the exhibition, I mean.’

I picked up the leaflet.

‘Oh, you know. Surprising. Full of vision, and … tenacity.’

‘Gosh, it sounds amazing. And there was me, never taking you for an arty one.’

‘Well, it turns out I am.’

‘Do you remember at uni when we were in that house on Narborough Road with that French art girl and Dev and she asked you to do that life modelling thing and you nearly moved out because you thought she meant naked?’

I laughed.

‘She just wanted you to sit on a bench and hold an apple!’

Now she was laughing, that familiar, smoky laugh. We’d come close to being together, me and Zo, if you know what I mean. Just once at uni, after one of those fashionable School Disco parties. Her cousin had been in town and was being violently ill in her room so she’d snuck into mine and we’d watched
The Goonies
‘til dawn. So I knew she’d liked me once. Maybe she still did. Maybe that suited me, after everything.

‘So anyway, I didn’t see you there.’

‘Hmm?’

‘I didn’t see you at the gallery.’

I froze. Was she joking?

‘What do you mean?’

‘At the exhibition. I went along in the end.’

Was this a bluff? Or had I been found out?

‘You were there, were you?’ I said, with what I hoped was a light and jokey undertone, but which may very well have sounded like fear.

‘I was. I thought I’d stop by. Whereabouts were you?’

‘I must’ve been … in the other part.’

‘Which other part?’

‘The part just off the main part.’

‘There was no other part. There was hardly even a
main
part.’

‘Well, I only popped in, and it was so busy, so I just—’

‘It was half-empty. You didn’t pop in.’

In the background, I heard her computer ping. Shit. My email. My email had arrived.

‘I popped in! I popped my head round the door!’

Please believe me. Please believe me
.

‘Jason,’ she said, and now I was starting to sweat, because I could hear her using her mouse, clicking on something, opening an attachment. ‘Have you submitted a review of something without having seen it?’

Was that her clever trick? Remind me of the old days, catch me off guard?

‘No … I’m … I went, but maybe you didn’t see—’

‘“With fans including Evan Dando and Carl Barat”,’ she said, and my stomach flipped, because that was how my review started. ‘“Kaiko Kakamara is an artist of surprising vision” … Well, I must say, Jason, I’m surprised at
your
vision.’

‘Zoe, I’m sorry, I can explain—’

‘Did you see that film? Or did you make that up too?’

‘I saw it. I can describe it in painful detail, but the exhibition … I was late, and the trains were—’

‘How about that restaurant? Did you even go there?’

‘I did! I ordered the Margherita!’

Factually correct.

‘Knowing what you’ve done makes this phonecall a lot harder.’

Oh, God. Oh, Christ. Come on. No.

‘I’m going to need you to come into the office.’

What? Why? If you’re going to sack me, just sack me.

‘Rob’s still off sick and he’s just phoned to say he’ll need a few weeks. Some kind of operation. So I need someone to fill in.’

‘Rob the …?’

‘Rob the reviews editor.’

‘So … you want me to be reviews editor?’

‘No, I want you to fill in for the reviews editor.’

‘So I’d—’

‘You wouldn’t even have to go anywhere. Just tell other people to. It’d mean office work.’

‘I don’t mind! I mean, I’d love to!’

There was a pause.

‘Zoe, you’re not doing this because …’

‘What?’

‘I want you to know you don’t owe me anything.’

‘I’m doing this because I need someone to fill in and Jennifer’s booked her holiday, Sam’s away Monday and Lauren said no. So Monday, yeah? We get in for ten, but I reckon you should probably pick up some croissants and put the coffee on and be there for nine.’

And that was that.

Jason Priestley. Reviews editor.
London Now
.

It was on a napkin, but if I squinted a bit it looked like it could nearly be a business card.

Dev had bought me a celebratory pint and set it down on the table.

‘I’ve noticed that the mainstream press tends to sideline videogames,’ he said. ‘But in “Game On”,
London Now
would have a window into this brave new world. I would review fearlessly, and from the heart, combining—’

‘I’ll check with Zoe,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure how many decisions I can make.’

He seemed satisfied with that.

‘Will it be weird, though, working with Zoe?’

I shrugged. Then so did he. I guess neither of us knew.

I let the silence hang in the air. Tried to turn a pause into a notable one. And then …

‘What do you know about Whitby, Dev?’

‘Whitby?’

‘Whitby.’

‘I know almost nothing about Whitby, other than its name. Why?’

‘The Girl. The photos. Turns out one of them was taken in Whitby.’

‘Aha!’ he said, clicking his fingers then pointing one of them at me. ‘I knew it!’

‘Knew what?’

‘I knew it! You! You love her!’

‘I don’t love her! I just know she was in Whitby once. I know you were in Asda earlier – doesn’t mean I love you.’

‘How do you know one of them was taken in Whitby?’

‘Gary.’

‘So Gary knows?’

‘He knows about Whitby, not about The Girl. He used to go there on holiday.’

‘Hey, check it out,’ he said, suddenly, and pointed across the street. ‘Pamela.’

He started humming that weird song again.

‘When are you doing it?’

‘The wooing? Dunno. Tomorrow, maybe.’

We watched in silence as Pamela jogged to the bus stop, and continued to watch as she jogged on, towards a car that was pulling up on the side of the road. It was a blue Viva, dented and chipped, but that didn’t seem to matter, because she looked delighted to see it. There was a man driving, and he looked delighted too, and I was way ahead of Dev here, so made sure I was in the middle of a large gulp of lager as Pamela got in, leaned over, and kissed the man, her hand stroking the back of his head.

‘Oh, come on!’ said Dev, and I winced, and nodded my sympathies. ‘Oh, come
on!
’

And then I got a call. And I was asked how I was, and I moved away from Dev and I told her, and I mentioned Gary had been by, and she said she knew, and she said sorry about that, and I said it was fine, no problem, and then she said we needed to talk, and could we meet up, because this would be better face-to-face, and just to show how busy I am these days I churlishly said no let’s just talk now, and so we talked, and I listened, and she told me why she’d rung today.

And the clouds may as well have darkened and the rain begun to fall, because the sky came crashing to the ground.

Look, it was good news.

Technically, it was good news.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she’d said.

She hadn’t known how to tell me, apparently, especially after what had happened, but it was true, and she was delighted.

She’d had her twelve-week scan. They’d gone away to celebrate. He’d proposed. They’d told their friends. It was terrifically grown-up.

‘I’d rather have told you face-to-face,’ she’d said, and I’d said something back, which was positive, and encouraging, but which I can’t for the life of me remember, because all of I could think of was, What do I do now?

And now I knew what Gary’s pause had meant.

‘I suppose you could say it was a
pregnant
pause!’ said Dev, and then I stared at him, and he stopped laughing and sipped at his pint.

Because it wasn’t just a pause about Sarah. It was a pause that summed up me and him. A pause in which he’d managed to convey the fact he had special knowledge, knowledge he could choose to hit me with if he wanted, but that he wouldn’t, because he’s too decent, too trustworthy, too honest, but that
he
still
wins
.

We were back in the Den, next to the van rental place, and we were sombre.

So that’s it, then. That’s that period of my life over. Properly over. Sarah’s going to be a mum. And I’ll always just be the ex-boyfriend. Then one day just ‘an’ ex-boyfriend. Then one day, sooner than you’d think, I’d be nothing at all.

And yeah, I know it sounds like I’m hung up on her, and yeah, I know you’ve amassed enough evidence to prove it – for Christ’s sake I’ve even written it down for you – but this is something else, this. This isn’t about her. It’s not my past. It’s about my future. Because when one person moves on so quickly, and all the other one really has is what
was
, thinking about what
will
be is difficult.

Maybe I should feel relieved. I’m out of limbo. I’m somewhere, rather than who-knows-where. The decision has been made for me: ‘Jason & Sarah’ can never work again; they’ll absolutely, undeniably never share a letterhead – and now I don’t have to worry anymore.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? The fact that my happiness is so reliant on other people’s whims and fancies.

I need to stop being decided for. I need to start
deciding
.

‘We need to do something,’ said Dev, tapping his finger on the bar to show he was serious. ‘Get away. We are men disturbed by women. You, with your now engaged-and-pregnant ex-girlfriend that you’re
totally
over, and me with my Polish wife-to-be kissing another man in London’s only-remaining Vauxhall Viva.’

He looked me in the eye, very seriously.

‘What are your thoughts on EuroDisney?’ he said.

‘I am not going to EuroDisney with you.’

‘Come on. We could go to EuroDisney. You and me.’

‘I am
not
going to EuroDisney with you.’

‘We could treat it like some kind of perverse stag weekend.’

‘You’re asking me to go on a perverse weekend to EuroDisney with you?’

‘I just mean we could treat it like a lads’ adventure. Show the women of the world we have no need of their ways and means. We could drink lager and burp in public.’

‘At EuroDisney?’

‘Fine. Bruges, then. Amsterdam.’

‘I’ve a job to start on Monday.’

‘Dublin.’

‘I need to be fresh.’

‘Okay, let’s sit about in our pants watching Phillip Schofield and his magic cube. We could just watch
Come Dine with Me
all of Sunday and not even speak.’

I bloody love
Come Dine with Me
.

‘Let’s eat bad food and mope about and pop cans of awful lager!’ he said, more passionate with each word. ‘Or … let’s use the moment. Turn something bad into something good! A trip! An experience! You and me!’

And with each pint, it actually sounded a little bit better.

It was early – far too early – and I was struggling to stay asleep. There was a whine outside. A high, throaty whine, like a man strangling a van.

I stumbled out of bed and winced as I pulled up the blind. I recognised the noise already. It was Dev’s Nissan Cherry. It was the noise it made every time he tried to use it, after which he’d inevitably give up the second he saw a bus coming, and slam down the hood to leg it across the road instead. It was eight o’clock. What the hell was Dev doing attacking his car at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning?

Maybe he’d seen Pamela coming and wanted to look manly. He’d probably made sure he was carrying a wrench, and had
agonised over exactly how much oil to smear on his face. This is the best thing about being manly: it’s so easy to fake. Smear some oil on your face, or nod and say ‘Aaah’ near mechanics.