Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time (36 page)

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, April 20. Amount of my day wasted: 11 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Train Girl, Universal Grandpa.

Oh dear, Martin. Are you ignoring me again? At least you’ve not set up that awful automated reply whatsit, but still. Where are you? Whither goest thou, Martin, in thy shiny train in the night? It must be six times I’ve written now, since your last reply. Admittedly, one of them was not apropos of a delay at all, but still, even allowing for that, there’s a good half-hour or so of unanswered tardiness on the tally.

So, anyway, I saw Train Girl this morning. (I’m writing this at work, on my personal laptop, through my completely impersonal webmail address.) In our usual seats in the middle of Coach C, we chatted our usual chat to London Paddington.

She’s looking good, Martin. This warm weather – it suits her. The legs are bare again, the skirt is short, the jacket is off. She’s got a tan somehow (that skiing trip can’t have done it – you can’t get tanned legs on a skiing trip, can you?). She’s had a haircut. She’s… well, I’ve said it before, but especially now, she’s hot.

Anyway. We chatted our usual chat, shooted the usual breeze, all the way to London town. And then, after we’d got off the train, after we’d followed the crowds down the length of Platform 4 and through the barriers, after we’d walked our usual walk through the cookie shops and the card shops and the Burger King and the information boards to where we usually part – me down the stairs to the Bakerloo line, her up the walkway and onto the street to her bus stop – she stopped me. Put a hand on my arm. And made me an offer.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘this is, um, difficult. I don’t normally do this. Well, I mean I do, but it’s not normally me having to say it. Normally the other person says it. But I don’t think you’re going to say it, so I’m going to have to say it for both of us.’

She smiled at this point. ‘That’s part of why I like you so much, actually. Because I don’t think you’d say what I want you to say. Because you’re the only person I’d actually say this to, if you know what I mean.’

I told her I didn’t have a clue what she meant. She looked at the ground for a minute, took a breath, swung her bag further back on her shoulder and then took my other arm, holding me, looking straight up into my eyes.

‘OK. Dan, listen. I like you. I mean, I really like you. I like talking to you – even when you’re moaning about work or the trains or that stupid bloody war on the other side of the world. Even when you get overexcited about ridiculous things no one else really cares about. I like that. It’s funny. It’s… endearing. I mean, you’re a bit of a dick, but I like that.

‘And when we go out, we have fun. We have really good fun. It’s a laugh, right? And I think you like me too.

‘The thing is, Dan, I do keep asking you out for a reason. I want to go drinking with you, and dancing, and having a laugh, and talking nonsense and stuff – but also, I want something… else. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I’m saying?’

I stuttered something about not being sure, but I’m pretty sure I did. My heart was banging in my chest; I could feel myself flushing.

‘Look,’ she continued. ‘What would you do if I asked you to kiss me now?’

‘Um,’ I managed, looking around at the commuters, the tourists, the day trippers, the students, the human traffic passing around us. ‘Um, well, it’s a bit busy and, y’know, someone might see, and, well, it’s difficult, and—’

‘Dan,’ she said. ‘Kiss me.’

I didn’t kiss her, Martin. I just stood there, stupidly, as she waited, her hands warm on my wrists, her eyes locked onto mine, her face upturned, her lips slightly parted. I stood there, just looking at her. I don’t know why I didn’t kiss her… but I didn’t kiss her.

She looked down again. ‘OK. I knew you wouldn’t kiss me. I don’t really know why you won’t kiss me because I’m pretty sure you want to kiss me, but I also knew you wouldn’t.

‘Anyway. Listen. I’m going to just say it. Dan: I really like you. I want us to be more than we are now. I want you to kiss me. I want you to… do more than just kiss me. I want us to be more than friends. I know you’re a bit mixed up cos of your wife and everything, but I don’t want to be your girlfriend. I just want us to have fun, whenever and wherever’s good for both of us. With no commitments. No hassles. No claims on each other.’

She stood on tiptoes, leaned in and whispered in my ears. ‘I want to sleep with you, Dan. I’m offering myself to you on a plate. No questions asked, no strings attached, no guilt involved. A sure thing. It’s yours, if you want it. And don’t tell me you don’t want it. Every man wants it.’

And she kissed me on the cheek and walked out of the station, and I watched her go, the sway of her hips, the swing of her legs. And you know what? She’s right. It is what every man wants. And Beth did sleep with someone else first.

So what do I do? If you thought the offer I was made on Tuesday was hard to refuse, that was nothing compared to this.

But shall I tell you why I didn’t kiss her? Because she said I was a bit of a dick. And I don’t mean that I was insulted by that, but that when she said it, the first person I thought of was Beth. How she said I was a bit of a dick too, in her email to her friend – and how a few words later she said she loved me. How she said ‘He’s my Dan’.

I am her Dan. She does love me – despite what she did. And I love her too. I couldn’t kiss Train Girl because I love Beth. It’s as simple as that.

Au revoir
!

Dan

PS – Also, why do people keep calling me a dick? Seriously?

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, April 20.

Dear Dan

Thank you for your recent letters. Your train on April 17 was delayed when a suspicious package was found in the Southall region, thus bringing about a ‘go slow’ enforcement in the area. You’ll be relieved I’m sure to hear that after a controlled explosion the package was later found to be nothing more sinister than a box of vinyl records somebody had left outside a charity shop.

On April 20, your morning service ran late due to an issue with vandals dropping eggs onto passing services from a bridge outside Slough. The impact of an egg on the windscreen of a train passing at even a moderate speed can be very serious, not least because of the impaired visual effects of yolk on the windscreen, and so we had to take the incident seriously. As I believe I have mentioned before, the safety of our customers is paramount to us.

I’m also pleased to hear that you have been offered a job away from the
Globe
. I really do believe that you would be better suited to work at a more respectable company and given all that’s been happening there, I’m surprised you haven’t been actively seeking work elsewhere for some time now.

Will you accept the job? Do please feel free to ignore my advice, and I’m sure you know the ‘business’ much better than I do, but one thing did occur to me. You say this public relations company looks after the interests of the man who recently won his court case against your paper? It’s just that several times in your letters you have mentioned his habit of making people offers ‘they can’t refuse’ when their actions prove troublesome to him. As I say, I dare say I don’t understand the situation fully and possibly I’m ‘jumping the gun’, but could it be that you yourself are now being made such an offer? Perhaps you should consider it very carefully.

Best

Martin

PS – I was going to say something about ‘Train Girl’ too, but I think you already know what my advice would be.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
22.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, April 25. Amount of my day wasted: 13 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Overkeen Estate Agent.

Do you want to know where my integrity is, Martin? My integrity – it’s all over me like a very expensive suit. Like a very fine aftershave. I’m wearing my integrity like a crown. Integrity is in every fibre of my being today. Integrity is what I am, it’s what I do. My name is Integrity, King of Kings. Look on my integrity, ye mighty, and despair!

I said no to Train Girl. Of course I said no. I had to say no. I told her I didn’t know why I was saying no, that I was probably mad for saying no, that the Dan of a decade ago would probably take me outside and give me a good kicking for saying no, that if my friend Harry the Dog ever found out I’d been made an offer like this and said no he would definitely take me outside and give me a good kicking… but that I was saying no.

I said no because I couldn’t say yes. I wanted to say yes, but I couldn’t say yes. I had to say no. I’m just not that kind of person. I can’t do uncomplicated, no-questions-asked, no-strings-attached, no-guilt-involved sex. I’m married.

I’m married. And I love Beth. Despite what happened. Despite the fact she and Sylvie have been at her mum’s for the last two months. Despite the fact we’d barely been speaking for a month before she went. Despite the fact things haven’t exactly been brilliant since Sylvie was born. I love Beth. No matter what.

Train Girl was OK, I think. I don’t want to sound like an idiot and say she was gutted, but she didn’t seem ecstatic about the situation. She’s not the kind of girl who is often turned down. She’s not the kind of girl who’s used to rejection. Although having said that, what she actually said, when I phoned her on Sunday morning, when I told her, was: ‘I knew you’d say that.’

Then she said she wasn’t bothered either way, that it was my loss, that we could have had some fun, that she wasn’t going to be repeating the offer, that I might just have passed up the best offer of my life, that she hopes I won’t be too lonely all these long nights waiting for my wife to come back… and I just said ‘yes’ to it all. I said ‘no’ to her offer, and then I said ‘yes’ to all her reasons why I was an idiot for saying no. But I still said no.

Are you proud, Martin? Are you reassured and relieved that I am the kind of nice boy you hoped I was? I hope so.

And guess what? There’s more! More integrity!

I turned down the job. I refused the other offer I couldn’t refuse. I won’t be leaving the scandalous and scandal-hit and failing and failed (more of that later)
Sunday Globe
. Or at least, not yet. And not to join the most powerful PR company in the country. Not to look after the media interests of the most famous crooner in the land.

Believe it or not, Martin, you were right. I mean, I had my suspicions – but you were right. It took your letter for me to see it, it took your letter to spell it out to me, in black and white (and read all over). They weren’t interested in me, were they? They hadn’t been following my career since the Jamie Best scoop at all. They didn’t want me for my brilliance and insight and tabloid nous. They were just trying to shut me up. They’d got wind of what I’ve got wind of and they were trying to shut me up.

(Of course, they didn’t admit any of that when I told them yesterday that I wouldn’t be accepting their generous offer, that I wasn’t interested in a (senior) position at their company. They simply told me they were very disappointed. That they wished I would reconsider. That if money was an issue they were sure something could be worked out. And then when I told them the answer was still no, they told me I was an idiot. They told me I was arrogant and stupid and doomed to go down with the rag I worked for.)

And you know what I did, when they told me that? I laughed. I told them they were right. Because I called them minutes after the managing editor had announced to the whole paper that we were going to fold.

That’s right. We’re folding. The
Globe
, most-read English-language newspaper in the world, scourge of bent politicians and dodgy dealers and liars and cheats and hypocrites worldwide, is going to cease production. Undone by Barry Dunn. Killed by the last victim of the Beast of Berkhamsted. Shafted by a man in a kilt. A victim of corporate housekeeping.

We were all summoned to the main conference room (those of us who are left, that is); we were told together that the paper had become too toxic, too tainted, by the actions of some in the past, to continue as a going concern. ‘We are a business,’ he said. ‘And as a business we have to put aside romanticism and emotions and think like a business. And as a business the truth is we cannot continue.’

The weird thing is, nobody seemed overly bothered. Nobody was shocked. Everyone knew it was coming. Deep down, everyone knew it was only a matter of time. Even me. Especially me.

So, we’ve got a last day. A final day. A deadline. Sunday May 20. Put it in your diary, Martin, enter it into your Outlook. You’ve got four more issues of the most famous newspaper in the world to come. And if I am going to go down with the newspaper, perhaps I might go down with some integrity after all, eh?

Au revoir
!

Dan

PS – You blew up a bunch of vinyl records? What are you, some kind of Nazi? What’s next? Book burnings? You can’t go round exploding old albums, Martin. That’s our cultural heritage, right there! Where’s your integrity?

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, May 3. Amount of my day wasted: six minutes. Fellow sufferers: Guilty New Mum, Universal Grandpa, Train Girl.

All right, Martin? Nearly the weekend. Cup Final weekend! What will I be doing this Saturday? Well, I’ll be watching the Cup Final too, of course, from the office (they didn’t confiscate the TVs at least). As I’m filing copy for the ante-penultimate edition of the
Globe
, I’ll be keeping an eye on the action. It’s the reds for me, but I won’t hold it against you.