Not What They Were Expecting (36 page)

‘I wanted to do this as soon as I saw you looking at me while we were dancing,’ Gabrielle said as we fell together onto her bed, my hands getting lost in her skirt.

‘Me too. You looked so sexy. I couldn’t believe you wanted to dance with me.’

‘Those sad eyes… I knew there was something.’

Fiddling with the back of her bra, I froze. Was I really here because Gabrielle thought I was some kind of War on Terror widower? A gorgeous twenty-one-year-old, with a sensationally springy body and, my God, a real way with her hands, was going to have sex with me, but under the impression that I was someone deep down that I wasn’t. Wasn’t there a name for doing something like that? But this wasn’t my idea, and it was her flat, and my God just look at her…

‘Here, you’d be for ever back around there. This one opens at the front.’

Her bra burst open and she stretched back on the bed, sexy and vulnerable hazel eyes looking at me as she lay there in nothing but a vintage skirt.

I felt physically sick.

‘You look…smashing,’ I said as I buttoned up my shirt all wrong, stabbed my feet back into my shoes and tried to get my flies closed without doing any permanent damage, ‘but you’ve…I’m…I’ve got to go.’

Gabrielle looked confused at first as I headed for the bedroom door, but by the time I glanced back on my way out her hurt and embarrassment had quickly resolved themselves as anger.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘Fuck off!’

I walked for two hours before finally getting an unlicensed cab that smelt of stale beer and sick to take me home, where for hours I tried to sleep with the idiot words ‘you look smashing’ echoing around my head.

‘Couldn’t you have tried to tell her before, y’know, you put your trousers back on?’ asked Hannah. ‘Made a joke of the confusion? I wish you’d called us—maybe it could have been recoverable…’

‘What are we, running some kind of sex advice line now?’ interrupted Rob.

‘Look, I know you want to be honest,’ said Hannah, ignoring Rob, ‘you want to be “Nice Dan” and all that, but sometimes with women it’s about saying the right thing at the right time…’

‘Are you talking about that thing he said about your hair that made you go and buy those straighteners you never use?’ Rob asked, grinning, as I spluttered into my coffee.

‘Or that other thing?’ he continued. ‘How you were really good at wearing clothes that don’t match?’

‘I meant that was cool. Bohemian!’

‘Or, what was it? That you weren’t “one of those too-skinny girls”?’

‘That— You— I— I was only trying to be nice!’

‘I think what she’s trying to say is you don’t have a great track record when it comes to talking to women.’

‘No,’ Hannah said, giving Rob her stern look, ‘what I’m trying to say, Dan, is that you try and be honest and decent, which is brilliant, really. But there’s a time and place, and it’s just a shame your timing was a bit off on this occasion. This could have been your chance to get back out there…’

‘Or rather in there,’ added Rob.

‘So, that’s it, is it?’ I moaned. ‘I’m saying the right things at the wrong time, or the wrong things at an even worse time? It’s no wonder I’m single and fed up with my life.

‘Actually, maybe calling it a “life” is overstating it a bit,’ I continued. ‘It’s more a string of pathetic non-events. I’ve not found a single person who finds me sexually attractive since Kate. And the more I think about her, the more I think it was just this total absence of something in me that finally prompted her to leave. Apart from that brief time when we first got together it’s like who I am — me — doesn’t exist for women.’

‘You could polish up the 9/11 widower act. That nearly worked — you could get a second-hand NY Fire Department badge, maybe add in a limp…’

‘Rob…’ said Hannah, putting a hand on his knee to silence him. I looked around the room, not sure where my outburst had come from, but knowing that I meant it, and certain that if I tried to say one more thing I’d… I’d probably get something in my eye…

‘It’s not been the best start to the year for you, sweetheart, we do see that,’ said Hannah.

‘But you’ve got your worst cock-up out of the way really early too,’ reminded Rob, more kindly. ‘Things can only look up from here.’

I sat there, embarrassed, but grateful for my friends. I wasn’t usually that melodramatic, but hangovers at the best of times made me a bit emotional. I was sure, though, that under the histrionics I was still right, that there was solid reason behind what I’d said.

‘Thanks, guys. It’s always sweet — and slightly creepy — when you’re nice to me,’ I said, ‘but how many years have we sat here and said roughly the same thing? That this year will be different?’

‘That’s how New Year’s resolutions work,’ Rob said.

‘Yeah, but it’s not just New Year, is it? Every time I think I might have found someone new, after I grab the bull by the horns and ask them out, I end up round at your place wondering how I misread the signs, and asking what’s so frigging great about my friendship that no woman dares risk spoiling it. Even you must be starting to get bored by it.’

A look passed between Rob and Hannah.

‘Well, we enjoy the ten to twelve weeks before that,’ said Hannah, with a teasing glint. ‘Y’know, where we sit around and dissect every passing exchange, glance and email for signs of a come-on. It’s romantic and sweet watching you building for your run-up.’

‘Seriously,’ Rob chipped in, ‘and I’d tell you when you’re being a boring arsehole because I love you, but I enjoy picking apart the significance of some hot barista saying “morning” to every other customer that comes into the coffee shop, but saying “
good
morning” to you. It’s the little details in life…’

‘There’s a lot that goes on in the nuance,’ I agreed.

‘You gotta love the nuance,’ confirmed Rob.

For a moment, in the nostalgia of past failure, I actually started feeling better. But then the phrase ‘you look smashing’ roared back to the front of my brain, knocking my battered spirit off its feet again. I also remembered that I now have to get my coffee on the way to work from a greasy spoon that uses instant coffee and a suspiciously stained kettle, because I’m too ashamed to go back into the Costa after I turned up that morning with a bunch of flowers.

‘No, I’m done. I quit,’ I announced. ‘I’m giving up on women. I’ve had enough. I can’t do it so I’m not going to try. I’ll become a spinster. Some people have no ear for music; some people aren’t natural athletes. Some — down to some inborn absence of hand-eye coordination — can’t do things that come fairly naturally to everyone else, like riding a bike or driving a car. I’m clearly naturally deficient in the pheromones that make men attractive to women, so I’m just going to accept it, and move on.’

‘But, sport, you can’t do any of those other things either. What are you leaving yourself with?’ asked Rob.

I gave a small shrug. The idea of the romantic loner was fermenting in my head. Me in a big house, listening to Radio 4 all the time and arguing with an ethereal John Humphrys. Lots of couple friends coming over for elaborately prepared dinner parties. The neighbours admiring the slightly mysterious figure next door:

‘Never married, you say?’

‘Some say his fiancée died saving a child from a terrorist atrocity…’

‘You don’t think he’s actually, you know…?’

‘No, he just likes to look smart, and throws legendary Eurovision parties.’

‘OK, I’m not having this,’ Rob said, cutting in on my daydreaming. ‘Bollocks to this quitting talk. You’re a decent bloke, you’re kind and you care about people. Any day now your female peers are going to wake up and realise they need to stop chasing bastards, and find the kind of guy that’s going to get up to do three a.m. nappy changes and supply foot rubs on demand. And you’re going to be in your element. We know you’re a great guy, and it’s about time the rest of the world caught up. And frankly, if you do pursue a life of solitude it’s just going to mean you spend even more time at ours, which will get old very quickly.’

‘He’s got a point, you know,’ agreed Hannah, ‘not about being at ours — you’re more welcome than he is half the time — but it does sound a little drastic. And there are millions of women who’d be lucky to have you.’

‘And we’re going to find you one,’ Rob said with a finger click. ‘We’re taking control of your entire romantic life.’

‘Ooh!’ said Hannah, rapidly embracing the idea. ‘We could do that, couldn’t we?’

‘Absolutely, dollface. All decision-making taken out of your hands. All choices made by us.’

‘Oh! Oh! Oh! We can practise you doing chat-up lines and tell you what you have to wear!’

‘We handle the details. You just show up and be yourself.’

‘Yes! You’d have to come back and tell us absolutely everything!’

‘Like he doesn’t already. We’ll get you loads of dates. H’s address book must be loaded with single girls we can easily set you up with for starters.’

‘Oh.’ Hannah slammed on the brakes. ‘Well, I’m not sure how many of them are really on the lookout at the moment, or not already loved-up. But, anyway, we probably don’t want to just take the easy option, now, do we?’

To that point, my spirits had been rising again. I gave Hannah a look.

‘Don’t worry, it’ll be great!’ she continued, recovering her enthusiasm. ‘We can be Team Dan, and have a secret handshake and special T-shirts.’

The two of them started talking about how they could orchestrate a campaign that, from what I could gather, would turn me into one of London’s most eligible bachelors. And make them rich from having tumbled upon the next big reality TV transformation show.

‘I dunno, guys. I’m… I just said I’d had enough of the humiliation that goes with putting yourself out there on a limb only to be judged wanting by the opposite sex, and your plan is get out there and be humiliated more? But with you two at home taking notes to work up into a full report on the subject?’

‘That’s not it at all,’ said Hannah, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘It’s really hard to find someone, and we know it’s tough out there — Christ, you should try it as a woman — but we’d be right there to support you. Nobody’s being humiliated, here.’

‘Unless we do decide to send you out to try it as a woman. That might be quite humiliating,’ added Rob.

‘I do have the best legs at this table, though,’ I pointed out.

‘I know. Bastard,’ replied Hannah with eyes narrowed to slits. With a wink she gave me a gentle kick under the table.

‘Really, sport, it’ll be cool. It’s like a big dare. But look at the qualities that make you great. You worry about other people’s feelings, and all that
nice
stuff. But that’s what stopping you getting in there with women, and where the arseholes and wankers have an edge on you. And
everybody
is an arsehole or a wanker, so you’re coming in last. Who else do you think would’ve bottled shagging a pneumatic hottie because they were worried about a case of misrepresentation?’

‘Don’t listen to him for moral advice,’ warned Hannah. ‘He’d amputate his right leg and claim to be a bomb-disposal expert to get in your position. But I would say this. You’ve been trying the same thing for years and years, and seem surprised every time it’s proved to not work. We’re just going to help you try some things that are different. What we’re doing is putting you through dating boot camp.’

They really were beginning to think of this as a TV show.

At the first sign of actually having fun, a disapproving waiter descended upon us like a soot cloud. He asked in a barely perceptible French accent — and using only marginally more polite language — if there was anything else we wanted, or would we hop it and stop spoiling the carefully designed corporate ambience of doom? We ordered lattes all round, and pulled faces behind his back.

Taking advantage of the lull in conversation, Rob grabbed his fags and headed outside for a quick smoke before his coffee.

Hannah and I sat silently for a while. It wasn’t that we didn’t have anything to say to each other — we could talk on the phone and email happily about night-out plans or just general nonsense — it was just that when we’d all been hanging out together and there was a sudden absence of Rob, the atmosphere changed. I didn’t know quite how to describe it but the mood was calmer, somehow warmer.

‘Are you all right, really?’ Hannah asked as our glasses of coffee arrived.

‘Myeh.’ I shrugged.

‘You did the right thing, you know.’

‘Hn. Eventually…I let it slide for too long. Thought she might have been into me ’cos of my sparkling badinage and her good old-fashioned New Year’s Eve drunkenness. But I guess she was thinking of a consolation bunk-up for a sweet old near-widower.’

‘Sounds to me like you were doing all right before the “fiancée” came up.’

‘Maybe. But there’s been enough times when I’ve been the lovely guy at the party who goes off to get the cute girl’s coat so she can go home with the cocky bastard who’s drunk all the decent booze and puked in the houseplants.’

‘Cor, I remember those guys.’

‘And then you married one.’

She smiled affectionately, with the slightest hint of a blush, as we remembered the first time the three of us met — a student party in Manchester. And I’d met Hannah first.

Then she got her sympathetic-advice face back on.

‘You know, we’ve watched you trying to get back out there these last few years, and I just wanted to say — there’s being nice, and there’s being a doormat. There’s waiting for signs and hints, and there’s clutching at straws with totally the wrong women. I say that only because I want you to meet someone who’ll see the absolute doll that we’ve known for all these years. And I think you should try this idea of Rob’s. Worst comes to the worst, it could be fun and something to think back on in your lonely bachelor old age.’

‘Just spoken to Angus,’ said the returning Rob with a consoling hand on my shoulder. ‘As we expected there’s no hope of a second chance with the jailbait. But I did get a bit more on that guy who’ll be reaping the benefits of dating a twenty-one-year-old now determined to prove her breasts aren’t nauseating. That fancy job of his in marketing? He dresses up as a giant ape and hands out flyers for restaurants. More gorilla than guerrilla advertising really. Still, I hear it’s a nice little business and he even owns his own monkey suit. How were you ever going to compete with that?’ he asked, ruffling my hair, and giving me a wink.