Kiss My Name (18 page)

Simon let go of my hand, took my feet and removed them from his legs.

“I think I need to go, Nicky.”

I wasn’t happy with him dropping a bombshell and then stropping off.

“Simon, I don’t want you leaving on a bad note. Everything has been going so well between us. Can we not just turn the clock back and pretend we didn’t have this conversation?”

At that point in time, I had known Simon Strong for about twelve years and I had never heard him utter a word in anger. This was all about to change.

“For Christ’s sake, Nicky! I don’t want to pretend that we didn’t have this conversation. I have spent years pretending that I didn’t want more than a friendship with you. Well, shock horror I do want a relationship. I always have. Just because Jason McLaren wants to chase after different women, doesn’t mean I ever would. In my life, honest to God, I have only ever wanted you and I think I will only ever want you.”

Simon paused to take a breath. I didn’t interrupt as I had no idea what more I should be saying. I had already suggested a relationship between us would be preposterous but now Simon had started getting this burden he had been carrying out of his system, he had no intention of letting up.

“Sometimes,” he continued, “I try to tell my heart that I don’t want you, but I’ve come to realise it doesn’t matter what my heart thinks. You heart is just a muscle, just a blood pump. If I died and my heart was transplanted to someone else, that heart would retain none of my feelings. It’s your brain that counts, not your heart. It is the brain that thinks and it is the brain that falls in love. It’s your brain that sees your nose in between your eyes every day and sees you blinking but chooses to ignore them, so they don’t drive you mad. My brain has tried to ignore my love for you, Nicky, but it
can’t do it any more, because that’s what’s driving my brain mad now. Anyway, I’ve probably made a right fool of myself now. This time I really should go.”

“Simon, you don’t need to go, we can talk about this.”

“What good would that do, Nicky? You’ve made your feelings pretty clear.”

“Simon, I’m not going to play games with you. If you feel you need to go, then go, if you want to stay you’re welcome to.”

Without a further word and without any further drama, Simon left. I didn’t want him to go. I could have made things so much easier for myself, for Will and for Simon if I’d have just said to Simon that I felt the same about him as he did about me. There was no point doing that though, I wasn’t a good liar and Simon knew me well enough to see through any charade. The truth was, I was shallow. Beauty may only be skin deep, but at nineteen, so was I. Despite my issues with Jason McLaren, I still wanted my next boyfriend to have chiselled looks and a six pack. I was still chasing the perfect package and stupidly, at that age, I thought Simon with his below average looks and podgy body wasn’t good enough for me. I sugar coated my rejection, but Simon knew the real reason and as he headed home, confusion and guilt set in. I wanted Simon’s friendship but didn’t want a relationship with him. Was that really so wrong? I felt I had lost another friend and in truth, another helping hand with Will.

That night, I was worried that this inciden
t may have marked the end of my friendship but as it turned out, our relationship was still in its formative years and the halcyon days still lay ahead.

JASON McLAREN – July 1995

I’m no saint, I know that. It’s 2012 and I’m still a flawed character but in the 1990s, I was even worse. I have always had two Achilles heels, alcohol and good looking women. They frequently arrive side by side like the heels on Charlie Chaplins feet. Nicky Moyes was a lovely girl and I’m sure she has grown up to be a fine woman, but because I was only sixteen and seventeen when we were together, I made mistakes. Actually, I can’t just blame my age. I think it is probably more down to those flaws in my character than immaturity. I’m well into my thirties now and I’m still making those same old mistakes. I now have a couple of divorces under my belt and a grand total of five children, three girls and two boys, that I don’t get to see. I work in the City, I earn over two hundred and fifty grand a year, my river fronted penthouse at St Johns Wharf is valued at over two and a half million pounds but my personal life is and always has been a bit of a train wreck. One of my friends once suggested that before I cheat on my current wife/girlfriend, I should go home alone, make love to the new temptress purely in my imagination and once I have ejaculated, then ask myself again whether or not it is a good idea. This is wise advice, but after a few drinks my brain and my penis are not that logical.

Natalie Fulbright was the very first temptress. She wanted me as much as I wanted her, perhaps more so. After our first get together in a club in Preston, she would pass me notes after class suggesting I may want to pop around to her house in Preston after College for some private tuition. I still shake my head in disbelief now when I think back to her sprawled out on her bed naked. These days, I don’t get my fair share of raw meat, most of the bodies I collide with now are very well done, so I will never let that image fade. I know from considerable experience that not many women look better naked than clothed, breasts often need the guidance of a good bra
and pubic hairs, peculiar things that they are, are not as attractive as a pair of designer lace trimmed panties. Add into the mix carefully concealed stomach flab and I’m sure you can imagine how much better it is for a woman to conceal her imperfections underneath designer clothing. With Natalie Fulbright, the opposite was true. At twenty two, she had the most fascinating and beautiful naked body that I had ever or would ever see and it was an injustice to mankind that it spent most of its time concealed by clothing. Pert breasts, washboard stomach, carefully pruned private parts and a backside you would delight in eating your meals off, all added up to the perfect specimen. Natalie was also an adventurous and giving lover too, I famously remember her saying, ‘If it didn’t kill me the first time, then I’ll do it again’. You would have thought, given her sexual perfection, that I would have been guaranteed to want to stick to her like super glue, but I’m not sure, even if other events had not conspired against us, that I would have stayed with her. My track record indicates that I don’t like routine and time has told me that the longer you stay in a relationship, the less a woman makes an effort to please you. One thing is for sure, I would have stayed with Natalie Fulbright longer if a bitch of a teacher called Mrs.Stevens hadn’t shopped us in.

Natalie had told me that she had been approached by Ruth Stevens in the staff room politely mentioning a potential issue with yours truly, but she said she didn’t expect, in a million years, that she would go running to the Head teacher. Our relationship was doomed after that, Natalie was even suspended for a spell. I tried to see her during the suspension, but Natalie suddenly announced it felt wrong to be fooling around with me and she was ashamed of herself for getting involved with a student. I suggested she should sod the lot of them and act like a brazen hussy (like she used to) but she ignored that request. One day, just before I received my ‘A’ level
results, Natalie telephoned to say she was going to move back to her Mum and Dad’s in Durham, in what I presumed was a mutually agreed compromise measure with Runshaw College. A few weeks later, I went into the College to pick up my ‘A’ level results, collected my four straight ‘A’s, went out that night with my parents to celebrate, then started planning for life in Loughborough.

During my time
in Upper Sixth, I must admit I should have seen my son more. Will was a cool little fella, but I was well aware that his Mum hated my guts and was always made to feel uncomfortable around her. In Upper Sixth, I allowed my visits to Will to tail off and if I’m honest, once I started at Loughborough Uni and began introducing myself to the beautiful Fresher girls, I barely gave Nicky or Will a second thought. When I came home from the summer holidays, though, after my first year away, I developed a real fatherly urge to see Will. During my second week back home, I telephoned Nicky’s house and thankfully it was Arthur, Nicky’s Dad, who answered. I had always sucked up to Arthur, thinking it would pay dividends if I had Nicky’s Dad on side, but there was too much water under the bridge for even him to begin the conversation anything but frostily.

“Hi Mr.Moyes, it’s Jason McLaren, how are you keeping? How’s that allotment of yours coming along?”

“Jason, don’t be coming that game with me, mister.”

“What game?”

“The ‘buttering up’ game. When was the last time you saw your son, Jason?”

“September.”

“And what month is it now?”

“July.”

“Bloody hell Jason! Nine months without seeing your own little boy. How could you do such a thing to your own son?”

“I’ve hardly been here, Arthur. I know I should have called round when I’ve been back home but...”

“Hold on a minute,” Arthur interrupted, “Don’t even start trying to make excuses to me, Jason. Nine bloody months. You’ve even missed Christmas.”

“I didn’t MISS Christmas. I gave my Mum Will’s present to pass in when she brought hers. The three storey Fisher Price garage, that was from me.”

“Brought by a woman who wanted Will to be aborted! Jason, I don’t give a shit what present you bought. How long were you back for at Christmas?”

“Four weeks,” I said a little guiltily.

“Four weeks! Four weeks and you couldn’t call around to see your little boy once?”

“It’s not that simple, Arthur. Nicky hates seeing me.”

“Who says?”

“I can tell.”

“She hates you not seeing Will, Jason, I can tell you that much. That little boy doesn’t even know who his father is. He’s two and a half years old, Jason. He’ll be growing up thinking Simon Strong is his father if you don’t watch out.”

That was the last thing that I wanted to hear. Simon Strong was some weird bloke who’d been sniffing around Nicky for years. I couldn’t stand the lad. He was a proper creep. He was the type who, if Nicky farted, he would be wanting to capture the aroma in a glass to take home with him to sniff. A proper weirdo. He’d been friends with Nicky since they were little kids but I could never understand wh
at it was Nicky liked about him. He was fat, ugly, boring....you name the affliction, Simon Strong had it. I suppose the affliction that brought him closer to Nicky was ‘mixed up childhood’. He had a kid brother that had drowned in the canal, whilst Nicky had lost her Mum to cancer. That’s the only reason I could ever come up with for why they were friends. They were bound by the common link of a tragic upbringing. I didn’t mind so much not seeing Will, but I did mind having my son think Simon Strong was his father. I told Arthur I’d make up for lost time and I’d be around within the hour.

NICKY – July 1995

I was trying to get Will dressed. I still had to put nappies on him, as although he was two and a half, he still had the occasional accident when we were out and changing a nappy was easier than getting him out of a wet set of clothes. Trying to keep a toddler still for two minutes whilst applying the nappy though, was a real struggle, but I had managed it. Over the top of the nappy, I was getting him into a T-shirt and a really cute pair of dungarees whilst Will was firing questions at me,

“Mummy, where are we going?”

“I thought, Will, seeing as though it is a lovely summer’s day, that we could go for a lovely walk in the sunshine at Astley Park.”

“And feed the duckies?”

“Yes, good idea, Will. We can take some bread.”

“Is Simon coming too?”

“Not today, Will.”

“Is he coming tomowow?”

Will struggled with his ‘R’s. I thought it was adorable, especially when he tried to say ‘three’ which came out as a lispy ‘fwee’. As a toddler, Will was scrumptious, with podgy little legs and chubby cheeks.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“Can we go to Simon’s today after we’ve fed the duckies?”

“Not today, love, I think Simon is busy today, Will.”

“Painting windows?”

“Yes, I think he’ll probably be cleaning windows.”

“Can we help him paint the windows?”

“We’ll see if we can find him when we are out, shall we?”

“Yeh, gweat,” Will said cheerily, as I finished putting his dungarees on. Barefooted , he did a few victory jumps to celebrate that we’d be looking for Simon.

“You love Simon, don’t you, Will?”

“He’s my best fwiend, Mummy,” perhaps Will noticed this made me look sad as he added, “but you’re my best fwiend too, Mummy.”

Since Simon had opened up his heart up about his feelings for me, a couple of weeks earlier, we had barely spoken. When he first brought it up, it seemed natural for him to talk about how he felt, but since he had unburdened himself, he had become distant. I knew it was because his feelings weren’t reciprocated and he was embarrassed, but I thought for Will’s sake he would continue to make some sort of effort to call around, but he had stopped phoning and he had stopped visiting. Will was confused by Simon’s absence and every day, he would ask if we would be seeing Simon that day. As I separated Will’s tiny socks, ready to put them onto his feet, my Dad appeared.

“You two aren’t going out, are you?” Dad enquired.

“We’re going to see Simon painting windows, Gwandad!” Will excitedly told my Dad.

“You’re doing what?” Dad asked me. As much as my Dad enjoyed having Will living with him, he took himself too seriously to engage in toddler talk.

“We’re going to Astley Park and then Will wants to go to look for Simon cleaning windows. Come here, Will, let’s get your shoes and socks on.”

Will obligingly came and sat on my lap and held up his bare feet to help me along.

“Are you going to be long?” Dad asked.

“I’m not sure. We won’t be too long as Will gets bored, but we’re going to take some bread to feed the ducks.

“Quack, quack,” Will said to show his Grandad he knew what I was on about.

“Will you be back within an hour?” the look of concern on my Dad’s face indicated he was angling towards something.

“I don’t know, Dad. Do we need to be?”

“Ideally you could do with not being much longer than an hour.”

“Why?”

“That was Jason on the phone. He wants to call round to see Will.”

It may have been sunny outside, but all of a sudden it was raining in my heart, or, if Simon’s love logic was correct, it began pissing down on my brain.

“I hope you’re joking, Dad.”

“He just wants to see his son, love.”

“For the first time in about a year. You should have told him that Will and I had moved out. You should have said we moved to Outer Mongolia after Christmas, he would have been none the wiser.”

“Who wants to see me, Mummy?”

“No-one.”

Will’s lip trembled.

“Why does no-one want to see me?”

I think in Will’s little world he thought I was telling him that everyone in the world wanted to keep away from him.

“I meant no-one important, Will. Just a man you don’t know.”

“Simon?”

“No, not Simon, you know Simon, don’t you?”

“He’s my best fwiend!”

“So you keep telling me.”