Mr. Commitment (17 page)

I
n the back of a cab with a wet late-evening London whizzing past in a continuous blur I could hear nothing other than the sound of my heart beating. With the benefit of my new enlightenment, the key mistakes I’d made in all my time with Mel were suddenly clear to me in a way they’d never been.

For starters I’d entered our relationship determined to stay exactly the same—which I’ll admit is pretty stupid, but at the beginning had made perfect sense to me. Changing meant that I wasn’t the man I used to be, and I quite liked the man I used to be. Mel, however, had taken me on a journey out of the wilderness I inhabited with Dan and led me part of the way to the land of the living, where there were three different types of shampoo in the bathroom, duvet covers that matched pillows and food that didn’t come out of a tin or make its appearance accompanied by toast. Admittedly, sometimes I’d felt like I was slap-bang in the middle of no-man’s-land—not quite my old self and not revised enough to be a new self—and yes, there were occasions when I found myself wanting to run back to what I knew. But I’d tried being a superstud of seduction and it hadn’t worked, precisely because I was a changed man. In the past my deepest thoughts used to be about stand-up, music and women. Thanks to Mel’s influence I’d expanded my repertoire of subjects to include life, the universe and everything.

Mel was the best girlfriend I could’ve asked for. She was funny, gentle and most of all, loyal. She was one of a kind and I’d nearly blown it for good because I had a problem with all the stuff that seemed to come with the relationship. Like Ikea. Like dinner parties. Like . . . marriage. The one thing she most wanted but the only thing I couldn’t deliver.

Well, I could now.

Blue

T
he taxi pulled up outside Mel’s and I sat motionless in my seat as my head occupied itself with the following problem: how on earth was I going to announce to her that I didn’t just want to have dinner with her, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her too? I looked out of the cab window for inspiration. Mel’s 2CV was glistening brightly in the rain but I couldn’t see Rob 1’s coolmobile anywhere.
He’s probably got a taxi so he can have a drink,
I reasoned. A thought which led me to consider the bottle of wine in my hand. During my afternoon shopping trip with Alexa, in a bid to be wild and unpredictable like her, I’d abandoned my normal strategy for wine purchasing and picked a bottle at random in Selfridges and bought it. It had cost me £17.99, which to my mind meant that it had better be up there with the best the sensual world had to offer or I was asking for my money back.

Enough of the procrastinating, Mr. Duffy,
I reproached.
It’s now or never.
I stood and watched the cab pull away. My legs felt incredibly unsteady, like I’d just run a marathon. It was amazing. They just wouldn’t work properly. In addition to this, my saliva had turned tinny and watery. With each swallow the scales of digestion were tipping further and further toward projectile vomiting. I was comforted by this fact because it meant that both my conscious and unconscious selves were in agreement that this situation I was about to get myself into was a momentous one.

I rang the doorbell and waited, practicing my proposal, so that when the moment came, at the very least I’d be word perfect.

Mel, I love you. Will you marry me?

Nice.

Mel, I’ve been a fool. Will you be my bride?

Okay, but a touch melodramatic.

Baby, I’m thinking me in a suit, you in a white dress and the vicar in whatever he wants.

Who am I, John Travolta?

I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, and tried to calm myself down. Eventually I heard the lock on the front door turning and I opened my eyes to see Mel standing there. She’d been crying.

“What’s wrong?” I exclaimed, observing the traces of smudged mascara across her face. “Are you all right?”

She wiped away a stray tear with the palm of her hand and said, “You’d better come in.”

I followed her upstairs into the living room, wondering what could’ve happened. I thought that perhaps she’d had a row with Rob 1, but it seemed to be more than that. Then it occurred to me that something might have happened to her parents. Mel’s mum had suffered a slight stroke a couple of years ago and had been in and out of hospital ever since.

“Are you all right?” I asked when we reached the lounge. “It’s not your parents, is it?”

“No,” she said. “They’re fine.”

I put my bottle of wine on the table and scanned the room for evidence of Rob 1’s presence. “Where’s Rob?”

“He’s been . . .” she said, sitting down on the sofa “. . . and he’s gone.”

I sat down next to her, and all I wanted to do was put my arms around her. “Have you had some sort of row?”

“You could say that.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said quietly. In a strange sort of way I actually meant it.

“There’s no need to lie, Duff.” She smiled weakly. “At least not for my sake. Me and Rob were never going to go anywhere. I’ve known that from the beginning. It’s funny: I think I was only with him because he was so much the opposite of you.” She paused. “Anyway, he’s not the reason why I’ve been crying.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, moving closer to her. “What’s upset you so much?”

“I’m pregnant,” she said, not looking at me.

I tried to grasp the meaning of what she’d said, but it just seemed to escape me. It was like my brain was stuck. I had no reactions at all. I was totally calm. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t feel anything and could barely hear anything apart from the sound of my own heart.

“Before you ask,” she said, “it’s not Rob’s. Practical impossibility. Call me old-fashioned, but I couldn’t sleep with someone I didn’t love, and I didn’t love Rob.”

“When did you find out?”

She looked at her watch. “Three hours and twenty-seven minutes ago. Not that I’m counting or anything. I was over a week late. I’ve been late before, but like they always say, this time I knew. I bought three tests, three different brands. Any less than three opinions isn’t enough for a woman like me.” She laughed softly, stood up and walked over to the mantelpiece and picked something up. “I thought I’d keep them as a memento.” She unwrapped a tissue and laid the three test sticks on the table one by one. “Blue. Blue. And Blue. It’s a baby all right.”

She looked at me expectantly. It was my turn to say something. The best I could muster was, “I thought we . . .”

“That’s life,” she said sharply. “Accidents happen.” She began pacing the room nervously. “If this is a shock for you, Duff, I’m sorry, but it’s a whole lot bigger shock for me. It’s turned my whole world upside down.”

“Listen, Mel,” I interrupted. I had to say something. I had to let her know that I loved her. That I wanted to be with her. That whatever happened
we
were going to be all right. “I’ve got something I need to tell you.”

“Will you not do that!” she yelled, tears now streaming down her face. “I’m speaking, Duffy! I’m fed up of you talking over me all the time. For once just shut up and listen!” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. When she spoke again her voice was calmer and more controlled. “I want you to know that I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to have this baby, Duffy. But I have to make it clear to you here and now that we won’t be getting back together. That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? Let’s get back together?”

“It’s not like that, Mel. It’s not like that at all. I want you back. That’s what I came here to say. That’s why Alexa’s not here. Because I want to be with you.”

“Oh stop it, Duffy! Just stop it. Why won’t you listen to me? I don’t want you to do the right thing. I don’t want us to be together because I’m pregnant. I wanted us to be together out of love, but it’s too late. It’s funny. In all the time we’ve been apart I’ve not once told you that I love you. We used to tell each other ‘I love you’ every day. When we split up that stopped and I missed it more than anything. Instead we’ve been going on about how we ‘care’ for each other and ‘need’ each other, afraid to admit that we still love each other. Well, I love you, Duffy. I love you so much it scares me, but I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that even though I love you it’s over between us. I’m saying that right now I can’t even handle having you near me. I’m saying that things have changed now beyond our control. I’ve always tried to do what’s best for you but now I’ve got to think about me.”

I looked into her eyes, overflowing with tears, and could see that she meant every word, and as the tears filled my own eyes, I knew that she was right. If I’d thought that there was even the slightest chance I could change her mind I would’ve gladly spent every second from then on trying to convince her. But she was never going to believe me. It wasn’t the situation that was impossible, it was her. I could see already from the way she spoke and looked at me that she’d created a barrier between us to protect herself, and she was never going to take it down.

Standing in front of her, my head swimming with thoughts and my heart overloaded with love, I pleaded with her. “Please, Mel, I’m begging you. Is there anything I can do, anything at all that will change your mind?”

“No,” she said. “Some things just aren’t meant to be.”

Rituals are important. Nowadays it’s hip not to be married. I’m not interested in being hip.

—John Lennon

The Italian Job

F
riday. 11:30
P.M.
The flight from Paris arrived three hours late into Heathrow’s Terminal Four, which was just about typical of the entire torturous fourteen days I’d spent there. On my very first night in Paris I came up with the great idea of sleeping rough in the Gard du Nord, thus saving me the many francs I would’ve squandered on a room with such frivolities as a bed, toilet and running water. It was only when I saw the state of the premier Paris train station that I realized what a mistake I’d made. The air was thick with fumes from the trains, and even the pigeons cooing quietly in the rafters were a dirty, sootish gray. At three o’clock in the morning, which is when I arrived, the only place with a higher concentration of criminals would’ve been a prison. Within half an hour I’d been solicited by four prostitutes, offered hard drugs by a man wearing a dressing gown, and received threatening glances from a group of young men who had nothing better to do than hang around a train station at 3
A.M.
After a sleepless night in which I did nothing but wish I was back in Muswell Hill, I booked into a hotel.

Over the next two weeks I saw all the sights that Paris had to offer: the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the flea market, the Left Bank, but without anyone to share them with, it all seemed kind of pointless. Everywhere I went there were couples smooching; gazing into each other’s eyes; feeding each other food across restaurant tables. I knew Paris was supposed to be the city of love, but this was ridiculous—it was like going to Ikea on a bank holiday, only worse because there was no escaping it, and it all served to remind me just how alone I was.

Even checking in for the flight home was a nightmare. The woman on the desk had asked me if I wanted a window or an aisle seat and I told her that I wasn’t bothered. The clerk tapped away at her computer keyboard and told me that all the window seats had gone for my type of ticket. Now that I couldn’t have one, of course I wanted a window seat, I needed a window seat, I would’ve torn off my right arm for a window seat. Where did she put me? A middle-row seat right at the back of the plane. When she asked me if I’d packed my own bags I briefly contemplated telling her that my mum, the renowned diamond smuggler, terrorist and drug overlord, had done it for me, but I chickened out because I didn’t know what other punishments she could inflict on me with her mighty seating computer.

All in all, I had a crap time from start to finish, but I suppose it didn’t really matter where on earth I’d disappeared to, my mood would’ve been just the same.

Mel had absolutely refused to listen to reason. The night that she told me she was pregnant, I’d stayed round at her flat until four the next morning just holding her and crying. Nothing changed, though. She still believed that it would be best for both of us to go our separate ways. During my time away I’d tried really hard to put myself in her shoes. To understand what it was she was feeling. Here she was, twenty-nine, single and pregnant, with a ex-boyfriend whose track record for reliability wasn’t exactly perfect. Of course she’d be scared to rely on me; to let me back into her life when she wasn’t sure whether I had what it took to go the distance. Given my past performance, I’d failed her. Why would she believe in me?

That was only one side of the story though. My side was equally complicated. I hadn’t set out to be unsure of my ability to love one person for the rest of my life—it had just happened. Unlike Mel, who seemed to have been handed a map and compass of her emotional landscape at birth, I didn’t know what I was capable of, and it felt like I was being punished for my deficiency.

Mel and I were a badly dubbed, out-of-sync kung fu movie, with Mel as the action and me lagging behind as the dialogue. I thought I’d never catch her up. But which was more important: us reaching the same conclusions, or us reaching the same conclusions at the same time? Mel had arrived at the idea of marriage before me, but now I’d reached the same point that she’d been at, she’d raced ahead again. Once again, it seemed, everything came down to timing.

Mel told me that she needed time alone, and I agreed that space was probably what I needed too. So I went home and told Dan everything that had happened—the splitting up with Alexa, abandoning comedy, my road to Damascus conversion to commitment, and of course my impending fatherhood. He asked me if there was anything he could do to help and I replied, rather melodramatically, “I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do to help me now.” That’s when I decided I needed to go away. Why Paris? Why not?

Initially I’d intended not to tell anyone when I was coming back home, but Charlie and Vernie wouldn’t take no for an answer. They’d harangued me vigorously when they dropped me at the airport to catch my flight, so I gave in and promised to contact them from France. I wasn’t trying to be enigmatic. I just didn’t want to come back to England until I’d vaguely sorted my head out. This level of intense emotional trauma was all new to me and I hadn’t the faintest idea how long a decent head-sort would take, but given that I’d only packed twelve pairs of pants and loathed hand-washing with a vengeance, my time away was always going to be limited.

In the end, the thing that made me come back (other than hating the food, boredom or running out of clean underwear) was Dan. Before I’d left he told me that he was thinking about going to Meena’s wedding after all. He didn’t ask me to go with him. He would never do that. But if at the age of twenty-eight I was allowed to have anything approximating the playground title “best mate,” then Dan was it, and I wasn’t going to let him go through something like that alone.

A
s soon as I came into the arrivals lounge I found a phone booth and dialed Mel’s number. I’d felt like calling her a million times a day when I was in Paris, but had always resisted for fear of making her feel like I was crowding her. The phone rang out and eventually her answerphone picked up. I put the receiver down without leaving a message and made my way to meet Charlie and Vernie outside the Sock Shop.

“How are you?” said Vernie. Her stomach was now so round with her pregnancy that I had to hug her from the side when she greeted me.

“I’m fine,” I replied unconvincingly. “I’m still standing, as they say.”

“It’s good to have you back,” she said, holding on to my arm. “I wouldn’t say this under normal circumstances, but because I’m about to pop a sprog any time in the next fortnight I think I can get away with it—blame it on hormone imbalances or something.” She paused and smiled. “Baby brother Ben, I have missed you.”

“Me too,” said Charlie, giving me a blokey hug. “It’s been weird coming home every day to find there’s still food in the fridge, beers in the cupboard and no one hogging the remote control. It’s unnatural, just didn’t seem right.”

“Are you excited?” I said, looking at Vernie’s stomach.

“Of course I am. I’m going to be a brilliant mother.” She paused. “Talking of brilliant mothers, Mum’s coming down to stay with us in a couple of weeks. Charlie can’t get that much time off work, and when the baby arrives I’ll be rushed off my feet, so she’s volunteered her services for a while.”

“Great. With Mum only up the road there’ll be no hiding how messy my flat is!” I protested jokingly. “Mother’s intuition doesn’t stretch from Leeds to London, but Crouch End to Muswell Hill will be a doddle for her. She’ll have psychic visions of the state of the kitchen and she won’t be able to rest until she’s nagged me to death to clean it up or done it herself. How much do you want to bet that when you pick her up from the train station she’ll arrive with a mop, a duster and twenty quid’s worth of cleaning products?”

Vernie laughed. “Pregnancy might mean my brain is shrinking, but not even in this condition would I bet against a dead cert like that!”

Charlie wandered off, trying to remember which of the NCP car parks he’d left the car in. Vernie and I, meanwhile, sat down on a bench outside and waited. I could tell that she wanted to ask more about how I was feeling but was holding back for fear of her concern being interpreted as nagging.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I can see that you’ve got something to say, so you might as well say it.”

“I just want to know that you’re okay. You’re the only baby brother I’ve got.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Admittedly I’m not brilliant but I am okay.”

“You don’t look fine, Duffy. You look terrible.”

“Cheers,” I said sarcastically.

“I know you told me not to say anything to Mum, but with her coming to stay you know that you’re going to have to tell her about Mel being pregnant, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Even the idea of telling my mum all about this made me feel ill. “But not yet, eh?”

“If you don’t tell her, she’ll find out somehow. That’s what mothers do best. If she does find out about it by accident, it’ll really hurt her that she didn’t hear it from you.”

“I know,” I said. I glanced up at Vernie to see if she’d finished. “I’ll sort it out.”

A
ll right, mate!” yelled Dan triumphantly as I walked into the living room and dropped my rucksack on the floor.

“You look like a stick insect,” grinned Dan. “I’ll get you a lard drip feed to fatten you up while you’re asleep. You look way too healthy.” He sat up and rubbed his head. “How was it, then?”

“Not too bad,” I replied as he handed me a tin of Red Stripe. “Six out of ten at a push.”

“I’ve got three pieces of news for you, all of which will make you believe that there is a force working for the greater good against all the evil in the world.”

“Give me the news that will make me most happy first.” I sloped into the armchair. It felt good to be back.

“Well, Alexa called while you were away. She said she had some news that she just couldn’t wait to tell you. It turns out that the telly job Greg got wasn’t as good as it sounded after all. Apparently the producers decided against using him to write gags and sketches, and instead preferred to utilize his skills as . . . wait for it . . . the voice of one of the program’s studio puppets! I taped it last week, and honestly, Duff, I nearly had a heart attack I was laughing so much. You can tell it’s Greg from a mile off. Who says there’s no justice?”

“What’s the other news?” I said, laughing. “It can’t be anywhere near as good as that, surely?”

“Greg update number two. I bumped into the lovely Anne last week in the Haversham, and guess what? She’s dumped him!”

“Result! So she came to her senses after all?”

“Not exactly. It was more a case of her having no other choice. Get this.” Dan leaned toward me as if too shocked to impart the news in the normal way. “Apparently Anne had thrown a party at their flat to celebrate Greg’s new job and invited all their mates. Half cut on Jim Beam, who should try it on with Bethan Morgan—Anne’s best mate—but Greg! Anne hit the roof and chucked him out!” Dan paused. “I wish I’d been there.”

“So what’s the third piece of good news?” I asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve got your own sitcom?”

“Better than that. Guess what’s on in half an hour on BBC2?” he said, pointing at the TV with the remote.

“Dunno.”

“
The Italian Job.
”

“Nice one,” I said. It was mine and Dan’s all-time favorite film. “Any other phone messages?”

“Nah,” said Dan.

I was still hoping Mel would’ve called by now. I looked at my watch.
It’s late—if she’s gone out she’ll be back by now. How many places can a pregnant woman be at this time of night?
Getting up off the floor I went to the phone and dialed her number. Her answerphone was still on. I left a message telling her I was back and that I’d try to call her again when I knew whether Dan and I were going to Meena’s wedding. Dan must have overheard the last bit of the message because when I turned round he was looking at me pensively.

“You don’t have to come with me tomorrow, you know,” he said solemnly. “I still haven’t made up my mind about the wedding, but if I do go I’ll be all right on my own.”

“I know you will,” I replied, “so you won’t mind if I tag along, will you?”

Realizing that it was futile to argue, he laughed and said, “Cheers. At least I’ll have someone to talk to.” He sat up straight and turned off the TV. I looked at him questioningly, and he said, “There’s something else.”

“What is it?”

“We need to talk.”

“What about?”

“Us,” he said.

“Us?”

“Yeah, let’s talk about us.

“I don’t know what conclusions you came to out in Paris about you and Mel or about what you’re going to do with the rest of your life, but I’ve been thinking seriously about my own future while you’ve been away. I’ve also been thinking about you leaving comedy, and it’s a really bad idea. The worst you’ve ever had. I know we’ve both got a lot of other stuff going on in our lives, but the comedy has always been a laugh. We’re not too old to stop having a laugh, so what I’m trying to say is . . . I think we ought to try working together.”

“What do you mean?” I said. “Be partners? Form a double act?”

“Like Abbott and Costello.”

“Morecambe and Wise.”

“Hope and Crosby.”

“George and Mildred.”

We ran out of double acts.

The only conclusion I’d come to in Paris was that Alexa was right. The minute I took any permanent job with no hope of escape I would be banging my head against the walls, constantly calling in sick or being escorted off the premises by security guards within a week. Some people can do the nine-to-five thing and not worry, but I knew I couldn’t.

Dan took my hand and laughed. “Do you, Benjamin Dominic Duffy, take Daniel Aaron Carter to be your lawful wedded partner in comedy?”

“I do,” I said, grinning like an idiot. “Do you, Daniel Aaron Carter, take Benjamin Dominic Duffy to be your lawful wedded partner in comedy?”

“I do,” said Dan, adding, “Then by the considerable power invested in me I now pronounce us officially a double act. Carter and Duffy. Has a nice ring about it, don’t you think?”

“Not as nice as Duffy and Carter,” I replied, “but it’ll do for now.”