Twenty Something (9 page)

But then she had me: Sheikh Abdul Al-Rahman, most expansive use of Arabic on a business card. I was stumped.

Top Trumps; top girl. What is she doing in a place like this?

Only a week until my foursome. My balls are the size of melons.

I am starting to really hate my job. And I don't mean the vague, unsubstantiated way in which everyone dislikes what they do for a living. I really, really, hate my job.

It was exciting in the early days when I suddenly found myself unspeakably rich after university. The suit, the Blackberry, the free taxis, the Christmas bonuses, the corporate entertainment — it was a heady mix. And even when this wore off, it was still bearable when I had Lucy to look forward to in the evenings. I enjoyed taking her out and buying her expensive presents. She worked in PR. I was the flash city boy. We felt like the perfect London couple. I could have been someone; I could have been a contender.

But now that I'm not with Lucy any more, I realise how fake those little baubles were. I hate the lifestyle I've grown to accept as normal. I hate the fact that I can go out and spend
£
20 on a Caesar salad at lunchtime and think nothing of it. I hate the fact that girls perk up when they realise how much money I earn.

And the work itself? Well, it's beyond useless. I don't even understand what I'm doing. I've got absolutely no idea how I've benefited anyone in any way. The words on my tombstone will be, ‘He never failed to maximise shareholder value'. I remember my father's retirement party and the hoards of happy teachers and former pupils who would never forget the impact he had made on their lives. And then I compare it to my situation. Even if I could, I wouldn't want to go to the top. I remember reading an interview last week about a marketing guru who was coming up to retirement. And I just thought,
Well done, you've sold lots of shampoo really well.

We spent the entire time at school and university being told that we could do anything we liked. We played sport, joined societies, learned instruments and travelled and then we totted up all our experiences into CV points so that we could get a job in a bank. I got drunk at a careers fair and scribbled on the wrong dotted line. It's completely nonsensical. We are a spineless generation that signs up to graduate schemes and pension plans in our early twenties. We treat blue chips like well-paid dating agencies to meet the right kind of person.

Well, I've met Leila, and I'm pretty sure she's the right kind of person. At first I thought it was just a rebound thing. But now it's become so much more. Normally the girls I find fun are absolute moose-bags. And the girls I find physically attractive are hideously boring. But Leila is different.

I can't describe it without resorting to clichés, but she's been a ray of sunshine in this rank, putrid tunnel of corporate hell. We've had lunch together almost every day this month. We've kept business-card Top Trumps as our own exclusive game. We talk about another world beyond these glass lifts and plastic
trees. She livens up every bleak moment I've spent in this dank hole.

But now that she appears to like Buddy and he likes her, the scales have fallen from my eyes. I've realised just how crap my job is. Chasing a new colleague only temporarily diverted my attention away from how much I hate the whole caboodle. Do you work to live or live to work? Recently, I've just been working myself to death.

I can't stand introducing myself to new people as a banker. I don't want to blue-sky think, or move the goalposts, or network (networking is for paedophiles). I have to start looking elsewhere.

Very Good Friday Indeed. Katie texted midweek, which cheered up the old misery guts I've turned into.

We were just having a drink together this evening when Rick rang halfway through.

‘Sorry, mate, can't talk now. I'm on a date.'

‘Who with, you cheeky slag?'

‘Oh, you know her quite well. I'm with Katie.'

At which point protective twin Rick hung up on me.

15—15.

The victory was only soured by Katie slapping me just as I put the phone down.

‘You didn't tell me this was a date date. I thought it was just a date.'

‘Oh no, don't worry, Katie. I was just using you to get back at Rick.'

At which point she slapped me again.

‘Why have you slapped me twice?' I said, grinning.

She slapped me again.

‘Thrice. One for the date, one for the date date, one just for fun.'

Not convinced I'm going to make the Fielding family Christmas card list this year.

Hallelujah
, I thought, as I woke up on this glorious Easter Sunday. After forty days and forty nights of torment, tempted still yet undefiled, I get to have simultaneous sex with three of my female friends. Tonight I become a real man, the ultimate champion of ‘I have never', the doyen of internet purity tests.

It's not been easy, I can tell you. Every time Leila turned up to work in a new outfit I almost screamed in internal frustration. Sexy advertising aroused me on the Underground. Bumpy buses caused embarrassing bumps in my trousers. And coming home to see Flatmate Fred chomping over his computer was almost the final straw. I even took to changing TV channels whenever a romantic scene started in a film.

After breakfast today, I went out to the local shop to buy four bottles of cheap wine and a bumper packet of condoms. Pure class. The newsagent gave me a wink which said, ‘You absolute hero.' I might have imagined it, but I could have sworn that the old lady in the queue patted me on the bum.

I was just walking back to the flat when my mobile rang. It was Claire.

‘Happy Easter, Jack. Congratulations. Your Lent fast is over.'

‘Thanks, I feel very pure spiritually. So what time are you guys coming round?'

‘Ha ha. You're a funny one, Jack. You didn't honestly believe us, did you?'

‘No, er, of course not. Ha ha. Don't be silly. Happy Easter to you, too. Enjoy the chocolate.'

I returned home and went into the kitchen, where Flatmate Fred was making coffee in my dressing gown.

‘That's a lot of wine for two of us, Jack Oh my God, that's a lot of condoms for two of us, as well.'

‘You know me, Fred. Just stocking up on supplies.'

We had a drunken Easter lunch together in celebration of our saviour's resurrection. And then I went off to my room for some quality Jack-time, acutely aware of a burning emptiness in what I used to call my soul.

We're a quarter of the way through the year and I can't get rid of the niggling feeling that I haven't done a huge amount with my time. April is the cruellest month:

One
Prunus subhirtella
— stolen, returned and paid for

One ex-girlfriend — slept with and returned; paid for a million times over

One best mate — almost lost, but returned semi-intact

One beautiful colleague — complete mess; will pay for my lies

One ugly American colleague — see above

One left testicle — still slightly painful

One flatmate — data enterer of the month

One foursome — don't even go there

In fact, about the only thing I've achieved is my Lent fast, which isn't the kind of thing to shout about from the rooftops. And a fat lot of good it did me, too.

To cheer me up at work, I decided to play a little April Fools' joke. Leila had slipped away from her desk for a meeting at around 11am and forgotten to lock her computer. Ah, the sweet innocence of the youthful new recruit. The less innocent old-timer (me) slipped into her chair and accessed her email account.

I opened up a new message.

To: Buddy Wilton-Steer
From: Leila Sidebottom
Subject: No subject
Friday 1st April 11.06

Hey sexy! Any plans for the weekend?

Leila

xxxx

Buddy replied straight away (keen Yank) and the exchange continued like this:

‘Hello there my favourite little tutee fruitee, how are things? Going out with a few friends on Saturday — fancy coming? B x'

‘Oh please, big boy. I always fancy coming. What are you wearing? L xxxx'

‘Now or then? B x'

‘What are you wearing now, my great big Buddy. Tell little Leila what Buddy's wearing right now, on 1st April, before midday. L xxxxxxxxxxxxxx'

‘Leila? X'

‘No, you fat cunt, it's Jack.'

I am a genius. Absolutely raw, undiluted genius. I could just make out Buddy going red with rage in the distant corner of the office. I deleted the emails from Leila's inbox and returned smugly to my desk.

I am a fool. A raw, undiluted, smug dick of a fool. The poo has hit the fan. It's one big tits-up, pear-shaped cock-up.

Leila emailed me at around 7pm to ask if I wanted to pop out for a quick bite to eat.
Brilliant
, I thought. We'd done lunch (twenty-four times). We'd done coffee. We'd even done drinks. But we'd never done an evening meal. This was surely a positive sign. Perhaps she'd got over her little infatuation with Buddy and was going to declare her undying love for me. Perhaps she was tired of waiting for me to summon up the courage to say something.

But Leila didn't seem to be in a loving mood as we stood in an awkwardly silent lift together.

‘Not the canteen,' she muttered, as I moved to press the button for the basement. ‘Somewhere outside the office.'

Aha, romantic
, I thought.
She's feeling embarrassed and doesn't want our first kiss to be over a plastic container of ravioli.

But she insisted on Starbucks when I wanted to take her somewhere a bit nicer. We sat at the table where I'd told Buddy over a month ago that Leila didn't fancy him.

‘Explain yourself,' Leila said sternly. I'd never seen this side of her before. The giggly girl had gone. She was steely and determined. She looked even better than ever.

‘Er, sorry, I'm not sure what I've done.' I had the
FT
on my lap and I could feel it rising above the bulge in my trousers. An upward trend in the Dow Jones — sponsored by Jack's willy.

‘Perhaps I can jog your short-term memory. What were you doing on my computer last Friday?'

‘Oh, there was that presentation we were working on. I couldn't find my Excel slides, so I had to check the spreadsheets on your H-drive. Sorry.'

God, how I would love to spread her over my sheets.

‘So you weren't using my computer to send ridiculous emails to Buddy, then?'

Arse, that's exactly what I was using her computer for
. Although I'd cunningly deleted the emails from Leila's inbox, I'd completely forgotten to delete them from her ‘sent items' as well. Arse, arse and more arse. I was busted. I couldn't think of anything to say to her, so I opted for a statesman-esque silence. But Leila wanted a statement, not a statesman.

‘Well, did you? Yes or no?'

‘Yep,' I mumbled.

‘Why couldn't you just own up straight away? And you know you've got me into trouble with your last line — the “No, you fat
unmentionable word
, it's Jack” bit? You know that words like
that flash up on the IT department's radar if you spell them out in full.'

I did know that. Sh*t. What a silly bl**dy d*ck I am for forgetting.

‘I'm so sorry.'

But it wasn't the use of the ‘c' word which really angered Leila, although I had clearly dropped at least twenty brownie points merely for knowing the word existed. What is it with girls and the c-word? It's just a word. Cunt, cunt, cunty cunt. There you go — it's really not that bad. It's got the same number of ‘c's as the word ‘dick'. Same
Countdown
structure: consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant. It's merely an anagram of a Viking king.

But I digress. What really bothered Leila was that she wanted to know why.

‘Why, Jack?'

‘It was just a silly joke, Leila. I'm sorry. A dumb-arsed April Fools' gag. I didn't mean to get you into trouble or embarrass you.'

‘No, not that. Why did you lie to me and Buddy? Why did you gain both our confidences and then lie to us both about how the other felt? I thought you were my friend. I've really grown to like you over the last month.'

Oh god. Buddy's email exchange must have made the two of them talk a few things over.

This is it,
I thought.
Don't screw it up, Lancaster.
Carpe
the bloody
diem.
Tell her that you've liked her since you first saw her. Tell her that she makes you feel like no one else has ever done. Tell her that she makes you want to be a better person. Tell her that she's beautiful in every way that a mortal human being can be beautiful.

‘I dunno, Leila. I guess I'm just a bit of a dick.'

I'd seized the day with all the dexterity of a dead hamster. Leila got up and stormed out — ‘Jack, for the first time, I agree with you' — and I was left by myself.

I was lower than the low. A quick caffeine fix at the counter
didn't do much to lift the spirits, either. When you've just had a row in an American-owned coffee house in Britain and then have to order an Indian-made tea from a Spanish waiter who makes you give your desired size in mock-Italian (‘A venti darjeeling to go — smashing'), you begin to wonder whether life is worth living.

Work is never going to be the same again. I have to leave.

As if my life didn't suck enough already, I am ninety per cent certain that I have testicular cancer. All the symptoms are there; I've looked them up on the internet. They went away for a bit, but now they're back and I can't keep on pretending that they're not.

I have a painful left testis and a general feeling of heaviness in the scrotum. My man-breasts are slightly enlarged and I have a dull ache in the groin. The risk of contracting the cancer is higher for boys born with their testicles in the lower abdomen (I had to have an operation on mine aged eleven to bring them down — my first public erection) and for those with a history of injury to the scrotal area (viz New Year's Eve).