Life and Soul of the Party (17 page)

But the best wasn’t behind me, I knew that now. The best was right in front of me all the time. It was Vicky and William who gave my life meaning. They gave me a reason to carry on. And right there on the spot I decided that what I needed to do was end things with Polly as soon as possible and prepare myself for the mammoth task of trying to make up for everything I’d done wrong.

Standing at the edge of the dance floor watching Laura and her mates enjoying themselves I reflected on the question Chris had posed earlier in the night: just how were Laura and I going to make this thing work when we were on opposite sides of the world? Though we’d been adamant that we weren’t splitting up, neither of us seemed to have the least idea what that meant in reality, other than relying on what Vicky had described as ‘the ancient art of finger crossing’. There had been a number of times I’d wanted to sit Laura down and make her sign some sort of agreement that she wasn’t just using this whole trip as a way of getting away from me; that she would be faithful to me; and above all that she did indeed love me like she said she did. But there was no agreement. And even if there had been, it wouldn’t have been worth the paper it was written on. When you’re in love you’re supposed to be able to trust one another. But though I hoped for the best I couldn’t help but have doubts not just about Laura but about myself too. Did I really have what it took to live like a monk when Laura was on the other side of the world? I hoped so but I wasn’t sure. I looked at her again on the dance floor – head thrown back, completely and utterly carefree and more beautiful than I’d ever seen her – and I realised that I just couldn’t let her go without a fight.

I waved but she didn’t see, so I walked over and grabbed her by the hand as she danced.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘Things aren’t right. They’re not right at all.’

As I stood outside Blue-Bar calling Polly I watched people passing by – a young couple dressed as though they had been for a big night out in town, a gang of indie kids looking like they were on their way to a party, and a group of lads in search of the nearest curry house – and I wondered whether any of them had noticed me or given any thought to why I was standing outside the bar. Maybe a few thought I was waiting for a taxi or calling my girlfriend to let her know I was on my way home. I doubted any of them would’ve guessed that I was about to make a call that would put an end to the five months of deceit that had been part of my life since Christmas.

She finally answered.

‘Polly, it’s me.’

‘Where are you? At Laura’s leaving do?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I can’t tell you how much Tony wanted to come tonight. We had a big row and now he’s in the living room pretending he’s watching a DVD but really he’s just sulking.’

I swallowed. This wasn’t going to be easy.

‘I think we should stop seeing each other,’ I said quietly. Polly said nothing. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but you must know as well as I do that this has got to stop. It’s getting too dangerous and I’ve . . .’ I corrected myself, ‘
we’ve
both got too much to lose to even think about carrying on.’

Polly found her voice. ‘So this is it? You just want to walk away? I understand it’s difficult for you, Chris, I do. But whatever it is . . . whatever the problem . . . we can work something out. There’s always a solution.’

‘I don’t think so. Not to this one.’

‘And that’s it? Your mind is made up? I don’t understand why you’re giving up so easily. What about everything we talked about? What about the times you told me you loved me?’

‘I know,’ I replied. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.’

‘Maybe that’s because there is nothing left to say,’ snapped Polly, and then she put the phone down.

I took Laura over to one of the quieter corners of the bar that was insulated against the music by virtue of being so tucked away. There were a couple of sofas covered in our friends’ coats and bags. I made a space for us and sat down.

‘What is it?’ asked Laura. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Look, I’ve been thinking and well . . . I don’t want you to go.’

Laura looked confused. ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

‘Exactly that. I don’t want you to go travelling. I want you to stay here with me. Don’t worry about the money we’ve spent on the ticket. Don’t worry about any of that. And if you want we can blow every last thing we’ve saved on the holiday of a lifetime – wherever you want – New York, Japan, the Caribbean – anywhere. Just don’t go travelling. Stay with me.’

‘What’s brought all this on?’

‘Everything.’

‘But you’re not making any sense.’

‘What’s not to understand? I love you and I thought that you loved me so why are you going off halfway around the world without me?’

‘We’ve talked about this. I thought you were fine with everything.’

‘Why would you think that? Because I told you? I tell you that it’s fine if we don’t get married and you believe me. I tell you that it’s okay to go off around the world and you think I’m fine with it. Is there anything you wouldn’t believe?’ I grabbed hold of Laura’s hand. ‘I’m telling you now, Laura, I don’t think I’ve got what it takes to make this work with you not here with me. I’d miss you too much. I want you to stay.’

‘Or what?’

‘You think this is a threat?’

‘Well if it isn’t, what is it?’

‘It’s a declaration of love. It’s me asking you to stay because you love me.’

‘And if I don’t stay?’

‘Why wouldn’t you?’

Laura sat there staring at me with tears in her eyes. I was about to say again how much I needed her. How I’d got it all wrong. How she was my safety net just as much as I was hers but then Alistair and Baxter went from playing ‘She Left Me on Friday’ to ‘Waterfall’ – a song to which the opening bars seemed to demand the attention of everyone who had ever danced to it at the Student Union on a Friday night – and within seconds the dance floor was flooded. Jumping up and down to the music like drunken teenagers Laura’s friends Davina and Alexa tripped on the carpet and came crashing to the floor at our feet. Picking themselves up with the minimum of fuss they were back dancing within seconds and their delight in seeing Laura was matched only by their delight in dancing to this long-forgotten student anthem. Ignoring Laura’s resistance they grabbed her by the hands and re-entered the fray leaving me to stand on the fringes of the frenzy looking on until Laura was swallowed up in the crowd. I stood watching the space where she had been, occasionally buffeted by the people around me but I couldn’t see her, and so, grabbing my things, I drained the last dregs of my pint and left.

It was just after one in the morning and I was dancing with Billy to the Happy Mondays – my fifth song in a row – and though I was getting tired Billy showed no signs of flagging.

‘Do you fancy a drink?’ he asked as the Happy Mondays faded into The Inspiral Carpets.

‘Vodka and Coke would be wonderful.’

‘Vodka and Coke coming up.’ Billy looked over at the crowded bar. ‘I think I’m going to head upstairs. I’ll be ages down here.’ He smiled at me and we kissed.

I made the decision to retire from the dance floor and scanned my surroundings for someone to talk to. Who was I kidding? Not just someone: I was looking for Paul. Laura and Vicky had told me that they had spoken to him at various points during the evening and that he had seemed okay if a little the worse for wear, and the knowledge that he was here and alone made me want to see him even more. I had been thinking about him all evening: about everything that we had once meant to each other and why it had fallen apart. The pain when we’d first split up and the worse pain the second time. And I thought about how even now I still felt that there was a bond between us that couldn’t be destroyed. It would always be there. Primed. Ready. Waiting. I told myself firmly it was time to make our peace, time to stop hanging on to the past and move on. With this in mind I went in search of Paul.

When a cursory look at the dance floor revealed nothing, I began asking around. Sightings with various degrees of reliability had Paul pinpointed everywhere from a queue in the men’s loos right through to the side of the DJ booth. Chad and Liam (who were admittedly very drunk) claimed to have seen him upstairs on his own looking like he was very much the worse for wear. I checked all the downstairs locations without success and was heading for the staircase when I was frozen to the spot by the sight of Paul and Claudia Harris kissing like a pair of drunken teenagers.

It had been nearly three quarters of an hour since I had left to get Melissa a drink. I would have gladly latched myself onto her for the entire night and it required every fibre of my self control not to do so. After all, Melissa was everything I wanted in a girlfriend – cool, funny and I felt like I could talk to her about anything at all and she would just get it. Time away from her seemed wasted.

When I locked eyes with Melissa’s friend Vicky, she mouthed, ‘Have you seen Mel?’ across the room. I shook my head and shrugged, then walked straight into Brian and Seb standing near the exit.

‘I thought you two were heading to the Jockey with Nathan and that lot?’

‘It was crap so we came back,’ replied Brian.

Seb raised his eyebrows. ‘Where’s the bird?’

‘Probably with her mates.’

‘Look, you don’t have to act all casual for our benefit. We both know you’re under the thumb.’

‘Yeah, that’s me, under the thumb.’

‘So if you’re not, what do you reckon then?’ Seb nodded in the direction of a group of girls near the bar.

Though mindless banter was all part of what Brian and Seb were about, it had been a while since I’d been out with them and I felt a bit alienated.

‘Seb reckons the bird on the left is the fittest,’ said Brian. The girl in question was in her mid twenties and wearing a John Lennon-style Working Class Hero T-shirt.

‘Tell him he’s wrong, it has to be the one near the jukebox surely? She looks like an Indian Cameron Diaz.’

I looked over at the ‘Indian Cameron Diaz’, a tall-ish girl in a fitted black T-shirt. She was indeed Indian and very attractive, but she looked nothing like Cameron Diaz. I was filled with despair at the thought that if things didn’t go well with Melissa all my future Saturday nights would end up like this: standing in cool bars with my two daft mates, making comments about girls we would never talk to in a million years while gradually drinking ourselves into a stupor. Melissa had saved me from this life. She had saved me from a lifetime of empty Saturday nights with my nose pressed up against the sweet shop window.

I pulled out my phone and dialled Mel’s number. ‘Hey, Mel, it’s me,’ I said when her voicemail kicked in, ‘Where are you? I’ve done so many circuits of this place that I keep getting mistaken for a glass collector. No one seems to know where you are. Give me a ring when you get this, okay? I just want to know you’re all right.’

I fished out my keys from my bag, opened the front door and stepped into the darkness of the hallway. Turning on the lights, I glanced in the hallway mirror and was surprised to see tears were running down my face. The faster I wiped them away the faster they fell until I couldn’t suppress them no matter how hard I tried.

I still found it hard to believe what I had seen. How could Paul have done that in the middle of a bar filled with people who had come to say their goodbyes to one of our friends? And with that bitch Claudia of all people? It had obviously all been her doing, her vicious way of evening the score. It made me sick to think about her lips touching Paul’s. It made me want to vomit at the thought of her hands on his skin. But Paul was no innocent victim here. Drunk as he undoubtedly was, it was still no excuse. He had not only betrayed Hannah, he had failed to show any respect for the sacrifice I had made either. And it was this more than anything that had made me boil up inside. I’d stepped aside and relinquished all claims on him. I’d made things easy even though he hadn’t asked me to. I’d put him first when all he had ever done was think about himself. And once again he’d let me down.

It hurt to think that the person I’d cared for so deeply was prepared to act in such a staggeringly shallow manner, risking his chance of happiness, and for what? For Claudia? I really hated him at that moment. Hated him more than I thought possible. And I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt him the way that he had hurt me time and time again.

The second Paul saw me he’d pushed Claudia away as though she was nothing to do with him.

‘Stop, Mel,’ he said grabbing my wrists. ‘Look, I can explain.’

‘Explain what?’ I broke free of his grip. ‘Explain why you think so little of me that you’d do this? Go on, Paul, explain away.’ Before he could reply I threw back my arm and slapped him across the face as hard as I could. I didn’t care that everyone was watching me. I didn’t care that the security staff were on their way towards me. And I didn’t even care that Claudia was looking on with a smug expression fixed to her fake-tanned face. I just wished I’d hit him harder.

I was already on my way out by the time Steve and Georgie, Blue-Bar’s regular door staff, caught up with me. They could see I was upset and they obviously weren’t sure what to do.

‘What’s going on, Mel?’

‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘It’s all over and I’m leaving. But if you want to be sure that there isn’t any more trouble then the best thing that you can do is make sure that the guy I just hit doesn’t try and come after me because if he does I will not be held responsible for my actions.’

Things between Laura and me really were over. No question. This trip had never really been about her wanting to see the world, it was about getting away from me. Even though I knew in my heart that she loved me, I was also well aware that she wasn’t
in love
with me. Or at least not as
in love
as you’re supposed to be when you’re planning the rest of your life with someone.