Upgrading (25 page)

“Honey, won’t I see you?” Her sweetness takes me aback slightly.

“Er, well, not tonight.”

“But I’ve booked a table at Scarafino’s—just like our first date.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow night, though.”

“Oh, don’t leave her on her own tonight,” says my colleague Maria who seems to have magically appeared behind me, ostensibly handing out a memo.

I put my hand over the receiver and hiss “Shut up” at her. She laughs and gives me a tragicomic grimace.

“Who was that?” says Marion.

“Oh, no one, sorry. Look, can we go to Scarafino’s tomorrow night?” There is a pause. “Can’t we?”

“OK,” says Marion briskly.

“I’ll call you tonight, anyway,” I say.

“Sure,” she says. “Have fun.”

Bloody hell, Marion. Steal my watch, take away my lift to work and then come on all luvvy duvvy. I don’t believe there’s any booking tonight at Scarafino’s for us.

“Women!” I say to Sami.

“Men,” she snaps back.

Yes, we are bunch of shits, probably, but we can’t help it, I think to myself as I leave the office early again.

*   *   *

Jane doesn’t exactly look pleased to see me.

“I don’t need a lift, thanks, anyway,” she says, walking briskly away from the Paperchase staff entrance.

“Good, because I haven’t got a car,” I say, following her.

“Why not?”

“Gave it back,” I say. She can’t help registering some interest at this. Even though it was unplanned, I realize it was the right answer.

We walk on in silence for a while until she says, “What do you want?”

“Take you for a drink.”

“Sorry, I’m running late.” We walk a bit further until she stops and says, “Are you going to follow me home?”

I think about it. “Perhaps.”

We walk on down the street and I’m beginning to wonder whether I should get on the Tube and go home with her, at least we would be able to talk in private. But just then she stops. She turns to look at me and already her face has softened slightly. She chews her lip for a moment while she considers the pathetic retrograde in front of her. I smile, gently wondering what I can say to give me five minutes.

“There’s a bar round the corner we sometimes go to after work, it’s usually pretty quiet.” She leads the way.

We order a half pint of Pimms each from a big, blonde Scandinavian girl. I have just enough money to pay for them. As we sit down at a quiet table near the window I decide to dive straight in.

“I’m sorry about that stupid stunt with the car the other day,” I say, playing with the fruit in my glass. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

She snorts. “Very tactful way to do it.”

“I know, it was really stupid. I wasn’t trying to impress, I just thought we could spend some time together.”

“In
her
car.”

“Yeah,” I say, beaten on this. What the fuck was I thinking about? She seems to accept my complete capitulation.

“She must be pretty rich.”

“Her father gave it to her,” I hear myself saying.

“All right for some.”

“Yeah,” I smile, glad that she is sort of aligning us together on this one. Rich people, huh!

Jane takes a sip of her drink. “Sorry, I lost my temper that day.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“No, I shouldn’t have stormed off, that was childish.” God, she’s so sensible, so reasonable. “I was just pissed off and tired.”

“I suppose Saturdays are always the busiest days, aren’t they?” I ask, not the slightest bit interested but glad to move into a proper conversation.

“Erm,” she says, idly looking around the bar which is now filling up, “it depends. Sometimes. I think that day was particularly bad because every customer was really complicated and foreign and also my boss was in a bad mood because she had a row with her boyfriend.”

“She shouldn’t bring her love life into work with her.”

“Well, she can’t help it, her boyfriend’s the store manager.”

I laugh and so does she. She tells me about her manager’s complicated love life and how she has to listen to her sob stories. “She’s got a husband and three kids at home in Stanmore.”

“No!”

“Yes,” says Jane, warming up to her tale. “I said to her, ‘Doesn’t he notice when you don’t come home at night?’ She said, ‘Well, he hasn’t mentioned anything.’ ” We both laugh again. I love the way Jane throws back her head when she laughs. For a girl who is so petite, she has a big, dirty laugh. “Then there was this American woman—”

She looks at me mischievously. “But I shouldn’t be rude about Americans, should I?”

“Up to you.”

“She’s American, isn’t she?”

I decide to play it cool, see how much she knows—and how much she cares. “Vinny told you that, did he?”

“Yes. I know you swore him to secrecy but Vinny’s hopeless.” She looks serious for a moment. “Don’t take it out on him, will you?” I’m too busy wondering exactly how many beans Vinny has spilt. He did promise me he hadn’t told her about my escort work. I would just die if Jane knew about that, I realize. But then she wouldn’t be here if she did. I feel myself blushing at the thought and looking away.

I decide that I’ll go so far as to tell her that I’m seeing the woman, which in Jane’s feminist vocabulary probably includes “girl” and that she does have a bit of money, hence the car but leave it at that. I won’t tell her that Marion is older than me and I certainly won’t tell her how we met. It occurs to me though that if Jane has interrogated Vinny about me, she must be interested.

“No, I won’t take it out on him,” I smile. “You really like Vinny, don’t you?” Again, I’m glad to change the subject.

“Yeah, I do,” she says thoughtfully. “He’s so kind and I love his dry sense of humour. It’s amazing, even now he can lead me on for hours before I realize what he’s doing.”

“Yeah, I suppose he
is
quite funny in his own way.”

“All the girls at university adored him.”

“Really?” I think about it for a moment, decide women are too much of mystery to try and work out in one evening and ask, “Did Vinny have any girlfriends? He never talks about them.”

She frowns thoughtfully. “Not really. I think there was one girl he was very keen on. He always had lots of female friends. I don’t think he’s gay, though. I mean it wouldn’t bother me if he was, I just don’t think he is.”

“No,” I say and stir my drink with my straw. I realize that, having dealt with the car episode, I had better mention what I wanted to talk to her about if she hadn’t stormed off; in other words what happened after our visit to the pub. “The other night, after the pub,” I say but I realize that I don’t know how to put it. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about when …”

“Yes,” says Jane. “We do need to talk … but … well … you know what I’m going to say.”

“No.”

“You do know!” Before I can think of a way to avoid mentioning Marion she says, “There’s your American.”

“We’re just …”

“Just good friends?” Oh, we’re not even that, Jane. It’s a fling and not even a fun fling. Half the time I think Marion is running rings around me, laughing and plotting behind my back with her freakish friends. Demanding and suffocating one minute and cold and manipulative the next. Being with Jane feels so relaxed and uncomplicated.

But I’m painfully aware that there are things to be cleared up between us so I say, “Sort of. Look, I’d really like to see you again.”

There is a pause. She smiles. “OK, but if you’re going out with somebody else, you’ve really got to sort that out first, haven’t you?” Oh, Jane, you’re so right. Have I ever got to sort this out.

“Well, we’re not really going out, it’s just a sort of … thing.”

“Sort of fling thing?”

Why isn’t there a better word than fling? It sounds like one of us is being thrown across the room.

“It’s a bit of fun.” That sounds worse so I try to explain. “I suppose I’m sort of on the rebound after a long relationship at university.” Jane nods. “Vinny told you about that as well, didn’t he?” She nods again, unembarrassed. “What’s your job at Paper-chase, interrogations?”

She laughs and then begins to pick some more wax off the candle holder on the table between us. “So she’s just a rebound … fling thing?”

It doesn’t sound very nice.

“Well, I suppose I just decided that I should just get out more, see some girls.” I wait for some reaction to my shallow, blokish confession but Jane’s too good a listener for that. She raises her eyebrows sympathetically. “But it’s going nowhere. Worse than nowhere. I’d have finished it even if I hadn’t met you.”

“Well,” she says, rolling up the remainder of the wax and putting it neatly at the foot of the bottle. “You’re the only one who can do that—if you really want to, that is.”

“I do.” We both take a sip. “I …” I have to say this. “I must say, I didn’t think I was your type, though.”

Jane looks surprised.

“My type?” She laughs. “What’s my
type?”
But I want her to answer the question. “All right, when I first met you I thought you were such a smug yuppie, that you really fancied yourself but you’re actually quite funny, like I said. And … well, I suppose Vinny convinced me.”

“Vinny?”

“Yep, I suppose you’ve got Vinny to thank,” she says. “I thought you were so smartarsed and knew you were good looking.” For some stupid reason I feel myself blushing, so I look down at the table and play with an imaginary bit of fluff. Jane continues mercilessly. “Well, you know you are. You can’t help it. I think that’s why sometimes you come across as ultra cool, sort of aloof, when people first meet you, when we first met, that night. You’re just shy, I suppose. Bit self-conscious.” She takes my silence as assent. “It must be a bit of nuisance actually—girls falling for you for the most superficial reason.”

I laugh, embarrassed.

“But you fell for me for a deep, serious reason.”

“Not really. And you and Vinny are really funny together. Your football game.” Oh God, good old One A Side Indoor Footy—whatever happened to that? “He’s a huge fan of yours.”

“What?”

“He is. He really looks up to you. He loves the fact that you share that flat together. He thinks it’s really cool. Oh, you know how boys hero-worship each other but you two are sweet together.”

“Perhaps I should go out with him, then.”

She rolls her eyes but she can tell I need more convincing.

“For instance, he was so grateful when you sorted out his tax thing, or something?”

“What? Oh, that.” Earlier in the year Vinny had decided the best way to deal with a demand from the Inland Revenue for some freelance work he had done was to put it behind the toaster for a few months. Then he received another official letter and got incredibly worked up about the whole thing so I sent it to my brother-in-law who knows about tax and grown-up things and he sorted it out without any charge.

“He was so relieved and so grateful,” continues Jane. God, Vinny’s weird—it really was no big deal. “I just thought that was really kind. So, despite all my reservations, Vinny won me round and made me think that if I did like you, there was actually a good reason for it. It wasn’t just that you looked like you’d walked out of a glossy magazine.”

“Well, I suppose I should be grateful, then. Good old Vinny,” I say, bemused. “To Vinny.” We clink glasses and finish our drinks. I want to kiss her again and she realizes it so she looks away.

“But like I said, it’s really up to, you’ve got to decide.” I consider the truth of this observation, once again. I’m sure instead of “decide” she means “chuck her.”

“Would you like another?” I ask.

Without checking her watch she says, “I should be making a move. I’m going out tonight.” She looks me in the eye for a moment and then reaches over and runs a finger down my cheek and over my mouth. It tickles slightly and makes me smile. I look down at my empty glass. She gets up and picks up her bag. I get up too, realizing I have half a hard-on.

“You can come if you want.”

“Sorry?”

“Tonight.”

A date? I like the idea of seeing Jane on a proper date. A few drinks, a bit of music, some food—why not? But am I ready to be introduced to the friends yet? There’ll be the usual quick ring round the next morning for feedback. I suddenly feel very nervous. Jane’s friends would probably hate me. I’d probably hate them.

“Erm …”

“Actually, you’d hate it. We’re going to a pub.”

“I don’t mind pubs. We went to a pub that night,
the
night.”

“Yeah and you looked like a fish out of water, mineral water.”

“Ha, ha.”

“No,” says Jane slowly. “But you’d probably hate my friends.”

“Why?”

“You just would.” We look at each other, both realizing that the Judgement of The Friends is a bit premature.

“Here, I’ll walk you as far as the Tube station at least.”

She laughs and squeezes my arm.