Twenty Something (8 page)

It
was
interesting. It was also one of the worst nights of my life.

It started off so well — economy pizza and beers on the balcony while we discussed Important Things such as politics and whether girls had ever put their fingers up our bums during sex.

Then some fool (I think it was me) suggested playing a game of ‘I have never' to get us drunk quickly. It's a stupid game, but it can work well when you're in a mixed group of people who know each other well and others who don't.

Buddy thought he'd kick off in a suitably light-hearted way: ‘I have never slept with Lucy.' Good lad — he'd picked up on the rules quickly.

Everyone looked at me, and I guffawed and took a hearty swig out of my can.
Yep, that's right, I've slept with her more than a hundred times
. Legend, me.

And then Rick took a little surreptitious sip of his beer.

‘Richard Fielding,' intoned Jasper, ‘I do hope that was an “I'm thirsty” sip of your beer, and not an “Oh, yes, I too have carnal knowledge of Lucy Poett”-type sip.'

It was the latter. I am not a violent man, but the next thing I
knew I had pushed Rick to the floor and was kicking twenty hues of crap out of him. It was the first time in my life that I had hit anyone. I think it probably hurt me more than it hurt Rick.

Buddy, who is even bigger than me, hauled me off and I strained like a Rottweiler on a leash, yapping a torrent of invective at Rick.

Girls in a similar situation would want to know why. How could they hurt someone who was a friend? Were there emotions involved? But all I wanted were the facts. All of them — when, how, and how many times?

But facts don't help in a situation like this. You want to know them all, but each little detail hurts a little bit more than the one before. There are a thousand questions, but each answer twists the knife a little deeper.

Yet there was one ‘why' I did want to know. Why had he lied to me so successfully when I went round to his flat to confront him, and then confessed in this extraordinary way during a stupid drinking game six weeks later?

‘I didn't lie, Jack,' he whimpers. ‘I hadn't slept with her at that point, innit. I really did back away from her in the club. And then she texted me on Valentine's Day, and I was so low and lonely that I popped round for a quick drink.'

So there you go. Valentine's Day — the day of commercialism, despair, desperation, love and sleeping with your ex-boyfriend's best mate before replying to his lonely-loser text and sleeping with him, as well.

‘Get out of my flat before I fucking kill you,' I say, marvelling at the dangerously low volume of my own voice. Jasper the thespian nods approvingly. I sound like I mean it. I think I probably do.

After Rick has cleared off, Flatmate Fred says, ‘That was a bit harsh, Jack. At least he owned up to it. That's the beauty of “I have never” – the drink never lies. The opportunity to show off in a self-consciously coy way always wins through.'

‘Right, you can get out of my flat before I fucking kill you, too,' I scream dementedly.

‘Jack, you tit, it's my flat. And having just witnessed your little performance, I'm not convinced that you could “fucking kill” a fly. I am not a fly, ergo I'm staying.'

How do you argue against such classically erudite logic?

And so to bed. Thumping the pillow and imagining it's Rick's face.

Made up with Flatmate Fred over a very long and boozy pub lunch.

Afterwards, I came back to the flat and started thinking about last night's news again. Would I have done the same if I were Rick? After all, Lucy is very attractive, and they'd always got along very well together while we were going out? Had he actually done anything wrong?

Of course, he knew from my anger over her invented snog how much this would hurt me. Some things in life are meant to be off limits. It's one of a few simple, unwritten rules. You don't mock your mates' parents openly, and you don't sleep with their ex-girlfriends.

But then I'm just as angry with myself. It's a curiously powerful emotion, jealousy. I just can't put my finger on the aspect that bothers me the most. Is it the pure physical act? Am I worried that he was better than me? Is he bigger? Did he last longer?

Or is it the emotional theft that it was Valentine's Day and he was going through the motions of making love to the former love of my life? Did they lie around and chat afterwards? Was there pillow talk? Did they mention my name? Had she been thinking about him while we were going out? Had she fantasised about him during sex with me? Did they share all our
private little jokes together? Did she tell him our pet name for my penis? And how could she sleep with a ginger?

These thoughts were all spiralling out of control in my head. They were gut-wrenching in the extreme. That's the problem with being the dumper as opposed to the dumpee. You get all the pain of the loss and none of the sympathy. It's all your fault.

Flatmate Fred had tried to listen, but I needed solutions not empathy. I had to talk to someone who would really understand. I rang my dad and told him everything.

‘Jack, you'll go mad if you carry on thinking about the little details. You've got to look at the bigger picture.'

‘Which is?'

‘Well, were you happy with her? Do you ultimately want to be with her? Was she the right woman for you to spend the rest of your life with?'

‘No.'

‘Well, that's your answer, then. You've got to hold on to that. The rest will sort itself out.'

He was right. Bless the wise old bugger, he was absolutely right. I resolved not to think about it any more. I'd dumped Lucy, I'd foolishly slept with her again (
after
him — so I still win that one) and they were both free to run their lives as they saw fit. If two lonely people wanted to liven up their drab existence with a couple of hours of meaningless grunting, that was their business. And, with these generous thoughts, I headed out for a night on the tiles with Flatmate Fred and Jasper.

I often wonder how different individual lives in Britain would be if alcohol had never been invented. Just imagine all the couples who would never have got together without a little encouragement. All those unsent text messages and undeclared intentions. Can you imagine dancing, let alone pulling, in a sober club? And just picture all the hair-brained moneymaking
schemes and madcap adventures which would never have happened if ethanol hadn't pickled the sensible connectors in our brains. Not to mention all the unfulfilled resolutions to sort our lives out as the wrath of grapes takes hold the morning after.

Yesterday evening, for example, would have been a great deal less embarrassing for me if I'd decided to curl up on the sofa with a good book and a cup of hot cocoa. As it was, I came home on the night bus at 2.30am and decided to ring Lucy.

This in itself was a stupid idea. All my generous feelings from my earlier conversation with my dad had evaporated. A two-day hangover was starting to kick in, and I wanted to have it out with her about Rick.

What I'd forgotten was that I'd added Leila into the ‘L's in my mobile, thereby distorting the order in my phone book. This unforeseen hiccup, plus the fact that I had just drunk the recommended monthly units of alcohol in a single weekend, meant that I rang Lucy's parents by mistake.

For some extraordinary reason I'd set my phone to record our conversation. Perhaps I wanted to use it in evidence later — I cannot fathom the drunken workings of my mind. And so, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I can now transcribe the exchange.

‘Archie Poett speaking,' says a tired voice.

‘Luscy. Ish that you, Luscy?'

‘This is Salisbury 755750. What do you want?'

‘Who the bloody duck face are you? Where's Luscy? Hand the mobile over to her. I demand to shpeak to her. And I demand to shpeak to her now.'

‘This is Lucy's father. Who is this? Why are you ringing at this time? Is something wrong?'

‘Luscy's father, my blubbering bollocksh. You're her new boyfriend. You're sleeping with her, aren't you? I bet you've got a tiny, flacshid, little penish. I know she's there. Let me shpeak to her.'

‘Is that Jack?'

‘Yesh, it's Jack.' I think the mention of my name must have sobered me up slightly. There is a sudden note of fear in my voice.

‘Jack, you've rung Lucy's parents' house by mistake. Put the phone down, have a cold shower and go to bed.'

‘Yesh, Mr Poett. Oh, my God. I'm very sorry, Mr Poett.'

‘And Jack?'

‘Yesh, Mr Poett.'

‘You won't remember this, but I just wanted to say that you could have been a son to me. I'm very disappointed.'

‘Mr Poett?'

‘Yes, Jack.'

‘Go fuck yourself, Mr Poett.'

Flatmate Fred's finally done sufficient internet ‘research' to raise the money for the stolen winter-flowering cherry. He's also been offered a full-time job doing data entry in a real office with real people. He was data enterer of the month. March must have been a bad month without precedent in the
www.crapjobs.com
community.

However, the ‘ghastliness' of his brief contact with the working world has convinced him to give his writing career a serious shot again. Anything is better than waking up at a regular time each day, getting dressed and commuting to an office job, he maintains. As he puts it, PJs versus P45s — simple choice.

Lucy wrote me a very long and very touching letter today (I haven't received a handwritten letter since school) outlining all the fun times we'd had together. It was uplifting and sad at the
same time. It dripped with nostalgia but it wasn't expectant. I think she was trying to wrap up everything that we'd had into a neat bundle, compartmentalise it, celebrate it and move on. It made me cry — things had been so crap in the last few months that I'd blanked out all the happy times. But it was also a weight off my shoulders. ‘Closure', I think the word is. It's a good word.

I also had some apologising to do. Mr Poett is a nice man and doesn't deserve to be rung up at two-thirty in the morning to be told to go and copulate with himself. So I wrote him one of the most awkward letters of my life.

And it's here that I feel there is a gap in all our educations. Instead of teaching us stupid role plays in foreign languages — ‘You're in charge of a broken-down minibus of schoolchildren in Dieppe; explain to the garage mechanic that the carburettor is leaking' — our schools should have stuck to situations closer to home. Perhaps GCSE English could include a letter-writing module: ‘Whilst inebriated, you telephoned your ex-girlfriend's father in the early hours to complain about her sleeping with your best friend. In no more than 200 words, write an apology note to the father. Remember to write on alternate lines and leave sufficient time to read over your answer.'

And then there was Rick, who had left a series of long answering-machine messages trying to explain himself. I had begun to feel like a dick for my reaction last Friday. And so I went round to his flat for our second make-up session in two months.

‘I'm so sorry, mate.' Thump on back. ‘Let's never let something like this come between us again.' Double thump on back, pause, another thump, stifled sob, etc., etc.

And then I went home and texted his twin sister, Katie, to see if she'd like a drink sometime. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

I walked in on a conversation between Buddy and Rupert (bald) after lunch today. It went something like this:

Buddy: ‘The problem with girls in the city is that they are valuable, overpriced commodities. Even the fattest and ugliest are heavily bid up, like private equity deals in the Middle East.'

Rupert (bald): ‘Yeah, mate, you're so right. All the best girls are highly leveraged (and they know it). And then there's the exit strategies to worry about. Very few of them are keen on trade sales.'

Buddy: ‘Haw, haw. These days I like to play the international markets with a diverse portfolio stretching across different jurisdictions and time zones. The Thai market has long been strong on liquidity, and Vietnam is catching up fast in depth.'

Rupert (bald): ‘I agree. I used to like the US market, but it started getting too litigious.'

Buddy: ‘Haw, haw. Emerging markets are often better than more mature markets in my experience, despite the difficulties in securing deal flow.'

Rupert (bald): ‘That's the great thing about the listed sector: you can dump your holdings overnight if you need to. Leave the last ten per cent to the next man — that's what I say.'

Buddy: ‘Haw, haw.'

It's official. I work with absolute arseholes.

Perhaps I should qualify my last entry: only ninety-eight per cent of the people I work with are arseholes. Leila ‘spokesperson for the rights of student chocoholics' Sidebottom has just permanently established herself in the two percent minority with the invention of a new game at work: business-card Top Trumps.

It works like normal Top Trumps, except that you play with the various business cards of contacts you've made during your career — a bit like a sane version of
American Psycho.
The choice of category is completely up to you: longest email address, most embossed text, job title seniority, number of colours, most judicious use of fonts, widest variety of contact details, etc.

I established an early lead with Rupert's (bald) use of Helvetica 12 embossed in cyan. Leila struck back with an Andrew Billington from BNP Paribas who gave three mobile numbers, two faxes, two emails and a PO box for his secretary (everything, in fact, apart from a carrier pigeon number). I countered with <
[email protected]
>(easily beat her <
[email protected]
)>