Chapter 3
I was still optimistic about making something of myself musically when Mattias and I met. I’d just landed a gig at one of London’s most lacklustre clubs. I was celebrating this infinitesimal advance (to a starving woman a bean was a feast), and I was very drunk. I mean unattractively, lipstick-smeary, talking crap drunk. I’d completely forgotten him until he called a few days later. I never told him that his first impression was about as indelible as a Tibetan sand mandala.
‘May I please speak with B.?’ He sounded vaguely foreign as he introduced himself. But that wasn’t unusual. I’d only moved to London six months earlier, so everyone sounded vaguely foreign.
‘Hi…’ I stalled.
‘From the bar? The other night?’
I still had no idea. ‘Yes, hi.’
‘How are you?’ He continued. ‘Did your brother have a nice birthday? Did you remember to call him?’
It had indeed been my brother’s birthday on Saturday. Using my considerable deductive powers, that meant I’d talked to this man on Friday. I had a bleary memory of writing on someone’s hand, evidence of which I’d found in the bottom of my handbag the next morning. My favourite kohl eye pencil was worn to a nub. I must have included my phone number, address, uni grades and personal stats, all the way up his arm. The human scroll was calling. ‘Yes, he did, thanks, and I remembered to call just before bed, so clocked in the birthday wishes in time. How are you? Did you, em…’ Think, think, think what we might have talked about. ‘Did you go on to another bar afterwards?’ I was playing the odds.
‘Nah, we were done. Listen, I enjoyed talking to you and wondered if you’d like to meet again?’
That wasn’t as easy to answer as one might think. I had no idea what he looked like. I also had no idea what we’d talked about. Ergo, no idea whether his idea of fun might be collecting stamps or birdwatching. But I had talked to him. And given him my number. My real number. I figured he mustn’t have been hideous; although he could still have been boring. He was probably cute enough to kiss. ‘Sure, I’d love to.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Friday, say, seven? How about the Long Island Iced Tea bar, in honour of your Americanness?’
‘Canadian-Americanness,’ I reminded him. ‘Don’t be fooled by the accent. Dad’s from Toronto, and proud of it, so I’ve got a foot in both cultures. In theory I guess that should make it a little easier to settle into the UK.’
‘Does that mean I should take you out to eat maple syrup on crumpet hamburgers? Maybe we can save that for the second date.’
I laughed and the biggest relationship of my life began that simply, though it almost didn’t go any further for practical reasons. His visage remained a mystery. I couldn’t ask him what he looked like, but blanking him in the bar might have set the wrong tone for our date. My brain refused to give up its secrets, threaten it as I might. Not one clue loosed itself from the morass of that night. My only chance was to get there early and let him find me. I had a plan to escape the client’s offices in plenty of time. On paper it was perfect.
In reality I arrived fifteen minutes late to find that all men could be him. I fixed my face with a slightly bemused half-smile, hoping to suggest dawning recognition rather than idiocy, and made slowly for the bar.
A vague spark of recognition fired my synapses when I spotted him. He wasn’t ugly. Or short, or bald. His smile told me he wasn’t disappointed either.
‘Hi.’ He leaned in and kissed me on both cheeks while I stifled a smirk. Being new to London, I still believed people air-kissed to be ironic.
‘Hi, I’m sorry I’m late. I got caught up at the office. Do you work close by?’
‘Not too far. In Islington. You’re in the City, right? How’s your project going? Your deadline is next week, isn’t it?’
Uh-oh. We’d talked about our jobs already. ‘Fine, thanks.’ How much had I told this man? Clearly my future didn’t lie with MI6. ‘Yes, next Friday. All going to plan. And you? How’s your, um, project?’ I was guessing he had one.
‘Which one?’
‘… The big one?’
‘B., you don’t remember what I do, do you?’
‘God. I’m sorry. No, I have no idea what we talked about. I’d had a bit to drink. I’m sorry.’
‘How long did you plan to bluff?’
‘What time is it now?’
He looked at his watch. ‘Seven thirty.’
‘All night. And next time if necessary.’
‘Do you have to bluff a lot?’
‘Are you asking if I’m an alcoholic?’
‘You’re an interesting girl. Should we start again?’
‘Yes, please.’
He wasn’t a stamp collector or a birdwatcher. Nor was he awkward, insolvent or dumb. He wasn’t a felon, or married or psychotic. He was just nice. And Swedish, though raised from teenhood in the US, which gave us something in common. Several hours in, he leaned over and kissed me. Good kisses. ‘Do you want to come to my place?’ He asked as we left hand in hand.
‘You mean for coffee?’
‘I mean for sex. But I’ll make you coffee if you like.’
I said yes. He wasn’t stereotypically Scandinavian. No blonde hair or Viking-like presence. He did have lovely green eyes but he was more Volvo station wagon than Saab 9-3 convertible. He was just nice. Incredibly nice. And warm and sociable and smart. He asked me to stay that first night. He snored a little too much for a peaceful night’s sleep, but we fooled around again in the morning. Then he got up, said that he had lunch with his brother and needed to go. As he kissed me on the forehead en route to the shower I thought, I played this all wrong. Wracked with self-loathing I tried to think of something to say to let him know that I wasn’t usually a slapper. What a feeble protest from a naked girl, and a virtual stranger, in his bed. I said it anyway, just for the record. ‘That was unusual for me. I never sleep with men I’ve just met.’
‘Neither do I. Girls, I mean.’
I didn’t believe him any more than he probably believed me. ‘I feel like we did this all wrong, backwards,’ I continued. ‘But for what it’s worth, I’d like to see you again.’
‘Yeah, I’d like that too.’ He kissed me as I gathered my clothes together for the walk of shame, and left to nurse my regrets.
I didn’t expect to see him again. It had been too easy. Not the sleeping together part, though that was a snap. The whole date was remarkably straightforward. Of course he wasn’t going to call. My love life was never that simple. So I put him out of my mind, chalking the night up as a should-keep-legs-together-for-at-least-twenty-four-hours learning experience.
But he did call a few days later to ask me out again. The details of that date were lost to my memory, as were the many after that. They were nondescript. They were easy. We fell naturally into a comfortable pattern, and still we liked each other’s company, had things to talk about. There wasn’t a specific moment when we decided that we were boyfriend and girlfriend. It just progressed that way. We were friends and lovers for ten years.
So why did I give up an easy relationship with this nice, fun, smart man? My reason never sounded good enough, even to me, let alone to my friends. It sounded naïve, like a pipe dream. A hard-hearted judge might say stupid. Who walked away from an acceptable relationship for… what? What if there was nothing behind door number two? And yet I knew I had to try to find what would be right for me. What would be enough. Even though I didn’t know whether what I was looking for existed. Events of the past weeks and months made me doubt it.
This niggling thought was my companion for my former colleague Jill’s wedding a few weeks after lunch with Kat. It was as bad as I’d feared, yet I had to keep smiling, proving to the bride that I was having the time of my life.
The man she’d sat me next to only added insult to injury. Upon introductions Prince Charmless took my hand, leaned around to examine my backside, and wriggled his bounteous eyebrows. I made my feelings clear but he wouldn’t let up. He kept asking why I was single. I didn’t really want to share my story with someone with whom I so keenly resented sharing the table. I mumbled more vague nonsense, cursing my manners. Even when I wanted to drive a fork into my companion I couldn’t be impolite. It was a trait my friends valued in me. I was the one they knew they could stick with crazy Aunt Rita at parties and rest assured that Rita would have a nice time. Every group of friends had one of these suckers. We were invaluable, greasing the wheels of inept social interaction.
‘I was married once,’ he volunteered to the table while everyone avoided his gaze. ‘It was me that ended it. Stupid to get married so young, but I didn’t know any better.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, just to fill the increasingly uncomfortable void. There were at least four more hours before we guests would be released from conjugal captivity. Two hundred and forty minutes of pretending to be engaged by the décor. Fourteen thousand seconds (because I had time to work that out) and counting. The equivalent of waiting for the kettle to boil eighty times. That was a lot of wedding to get through.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ said the bore, warming to his theme. ‘I wasn’t. Heh heh.’ He sighed and stretched. ‘Nope, I’ve never looked back. Too many fine ladies out there to be tied down to one. We’re not meant to be monogamous, you know. Look at the animals. We’re hard-wired to sow our seeds as widely as possible. It’s in our genetic programming. Though if I met the right lady, I’d consider monogamy for a period.’
‘Uh-huh. I’m sure you’ll find her.’
‘Maybe I have.’ He wriggled his eyebrows again.
‘Good for you. Excuse me. I need to powder my nose.’
As I wove my way between the dancing couples, I said a little act of contrition. ‘Hello God? It’s me, B. I’m heartily sorry for all the smug thoughts I’ve ever had when listening to friends lament being solo at weddings. This really is soul-destroying. I will never be judgmental again. Amen.’
‘There you are!’ Kat said from in front of the mirror where she smoothed her dark bob. She looked remarkably un-Teutonic for an Austrian. Deep brown eyes and lightly tanned skin suggested some Ottoman seeds got mixed up in her family tree. ‘How’re you doing?’ She blotted vivid red lipstick.
‘Okay.’
‘I’m sorry we’ve been away from the table. I don’t know what has got into James. He thinks he’s Fred Astaire tonight.’ Her brows scrunched together. ‘How are you really doing?’
It was no use lying to her. ‘This is awful. I think I might go soon.’
‘No, you can’t go! Stay with James and me. Please? The man next to you seems interested. Is he nice? Should we talk to him?’
‘He’s interested in anything with a pulse. Promise me you won’t do anything to encourage him.’ I appreciated their willingness to be my chaperones, but I was more likely to need defence lawyers if the bore kept up his attentions.
‘All right, then stay and talk to us. You know you’re our only form of entertainment.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Oh, it is, B., I never lie.’
That was a fact. Kat was the most straightforward, unlying person I knew. That made her a tremendous if sometimes painful friend. I wouldn’t have traded her for the world.
‘The babysitter turns into a squash in two hours,’ she continued. ‘Then we have to go anyway.’
‘I think you mean pumpkin.’ I was godmother to their youngest son, Conrad, so obviously he was my favourite. But the other one, Jonathan, was a close runner-up. ‘How’s Jonathan?’
‘Better. Fine. His medication seems to be working for the moment.’
The poor boy hadn’t had it easy. A few years earlier he started having awful stomach pains that kept him, and everyone else, awake through the night. The specialists had their theories. They prescribed lots of drugs with little success. Kat and James started to look like new parents again. It was bad for James, but it was worse for Kat, caring for Jonathan night and day. Raising a family was always her number one priority, and her kids were her world. If it were me, being on-call like that would have given me fantasies about trading places with James. Working 60-hour weeks under the weight of insomnia would seem like a doddle in comparison.
Understandably, they were at each other’s throats, looking down a very long, uncertain road. They couldn’t leave their son alone because they never knew when he’d need their hands to hold, which was all he wanted when symptoms struck. They became recluses. Finally, desperate, Kat took him to a Chinese medicine doctor who took one look at his tongue and diagnosed Crohn’s disease. It was terrible news, but at least they had an answer and were able to get Jonathan the right treatment. Slowly they recovered their lives again. ‘What a relief that the medicine is working,’ I said. ‘Still, it must be hard for him. And for you, of course.’
‘Mmm. It’s easier now that we are used to it. At least I don’t feel like a bad mother any more.’
‘Kat, you were never a bad mother!’
‘Schatzi, I hope you never know what it feels like to see your child hurting and not be able to help. That’s my job, to make it all better. I’m his mother. I don’t know what I’d have done if that doctor hadn’t helped. Now at least we know what he can eat. And the sweet child, he takes it in his stroke. You know how adaptable children are. They’re not like us.’ She shook her head. ‘Let’s go find James. I’m sure he’s by the bar, shifting his shoulders to the music in that way he thinks looks cool when he really looks like he’s having a fit. I told him not to drink too much but it’s not often that he gets to let his hairs down. So I don’t really mind. I said I’d drive anyway.’
The bellowing bride interrupted our walk back to the table. ‘B., you’re single, get over here, I’m throwing the bouquet!’
Just to put the rotten cherry on the already foul-tasting cake.
It was remarkable that a woman who couldn’t aim a car into a 10-metre space without jumping the kerb could fire a nosegay with sniper-like precision. I was about to be taken down by friendly fire.
We cowered together on the parquet in various stages of denial and humiliation. It was the moment I’d dreaded since opening the Plus One invitation. How could brides suffer so completely from amnesia when it came to their own weddings? All the years of cringing behind the drunkest-looking single woman (slow reflexes) flew straight out of their heads, and suddenly this ritual humiliation became ‘fun’ in their wedding-addled brains.
Just as the bride began limbering up, I spotted our saving grace. She had that mad look in her eye that said she’d take the bullet for the rest of us, or die trying. Relief washed over the reluctant brides-to-be. It was the ninth circle of wedding hell.
‘Having fun, James?’ I asked once the floral stoning ended. He really did look handsome in his morning suit. When Kat first introduced me to him I thought she was the luckiest woman in the world. James was great.
‘Yes, very nice time. You?’
‘Mm, not really.’ Having best friends meant never having to sugar-coat a grumpy mood.
‘You should have brought a sexy date.’
‘They’re thin on the ground. Honestly, James, you can’t imagine the men that are out there.’
‘Okay, here, have some more wine. Sit down and tell Uncle James what’s wrong. Spare no details.’ He gallantly pulled out the chair beside Kat.
‘Please don’t call yourself Uncle James,’ I said. ‘It makes you sound like you cruise schoolyards with your flies open.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I had a blind date last week. Fiona set us up.’ I should have known better than to trust her when it came to romance. ‘He called me radioactive.’
‘As in “you’re so hot”?’ James asked.
‘As in toxic. He asked me about my relationships. I couldn’t very well gloss over Mattias, so I told him we’d broken up. That’s when he declared me noxious.’
‘How did you describe that?’ James asked. ‘I’m just curious.’
‘I just told him what happened. I said that I had no idea I was going to break up with him before we had the talk, but as soon as we did I knew the relationship wasn’t working, that he wasn’t right for me. Why are you both looking at me like that?’
‘Well, we know you, and we know the whole situation,’ Kat said. ‘But you can see how that might sound a little impulsive, right? You’d been together a long time. Someone else, a stranger, might not understand. Maybe you could say it a little differently. To strangers. I don’t mean lie, just say what happened in a certain way.’
‘You mean lie.’
James shook his head. ‘Just tell the story in a different way, so as not to shock.’
‘My story’s not shocking.’ Surely people had life-changing realisations all the time.
‘Oh, Spatzl,’ Kat said. ‘We’re not judging you. You know that. We’re just suggesting that you might want to lead with a different version of events. Maybe instead you could say that you’d been growing apart for a few years. And that your talk made you realise that you’re different people now than you were when you were first together. So while it seemed sudden to us, your friends, it was in fact the way the relationship had been moving for a long time. That’s all true, isn’t it?’
‘I guess you’re right. That hardly sounds radioactive at all.’
‘Well, maybe that’s the best way to say it, then. So anyway, this man,’ Kat prompted, as if she hadn’t already memorised the gory details from our daily phone calls. ‘You said goodnight after he called you radiation?’
‘Why Kat, I’m glad you asked, but no, not till after he scrimped on the bill. He put down three quid and said, “Well, I only had a diet coke.” He sure knows how to show a girl a good time.’
‘Charming,’ mumbled James. Being a generous man, he hated skinflints. ‘So, no second date? Sorry, sorry,’ he said in response to my face. ‘I guess not. Better luck next time. There will be a next time, right? You haven’t sworn off men?’
‘Tempting, but no. There’s just not much choice.’
‘There must be someone interesting. What about tonight? Have you looked?’
I admired James for not taking sides or judging me, but he could be dim about some things. It was like asking someone who’d lost her keys whether she’d looked for them. Duh. Literally the only single man young enough have his own teeth and old enough not to need help going to the loo was sitting next to me. When did that happen? When did my friends stop knowing eligible men?
‘What about him?’ Kat pointed at the stage. ‘The one in the back, playing the big instrument. What is that? Cello.’
‘Bass, darling.’
I hadn’t failed to notice him. But wasn’t it a bit sad, a bit smacking of desperation, to chat up the guy in the wedding band? ‘I don’t know, Kat. He looks all right but I don’t know anything about him. How do you know he’s single?’
‘B., he’s in a band,’ Kat counted off on her fingers. ‘You sing. You already know you have things in common. And it’s easy enough to find out if he’s single.’
I didn’t bother pointing out that despite her four-finger tally, she actually only had one reason. It was no use arguing with her. Besides, she wouldn’t have heard me. For someone so short she had a remarkably long stride. She crossed the room in seconds. She was going to ask him. Worse, he clocked her approach, and that we were staring at him. It was beyond humiliating.
‘He’s single,’ she announced upon her return a minute later. ‘And he says he’d be happy to talk to you when they’re finished. See? That was easy.’
‘That was like having your mother get you a date. Kat, does anything embarrass you?’
She looked honestly baffled. ‘Why should that embarrass me?’
James laughed. ‘It’s no use, B., you know she can’t be embarrassed.’
‘He’s right, I can’t be embarrassed.’
‘That’s what I love about you, Kat.’
‘I love you too, Spatzl. I just want you to be happy. Here, have some more wine. They’ll be finished in a few minutes and then you can talk to him.’
My friends had the glow of proud parents. I did love them, occasional humiliation aside. As my first friend in London, Kat and I had been through it all together. I struck it lucky twice at work, first with Kat, and then again five or six years ago with Clare. In fact, Clare went on to Fiona’s books to replace Kat, who’d quit to tend full-time to the sprogs. At first I missed her terribly, since our inappropriate office gossip sessions were my main source of daytime entertainment. Recently my love life seemed to be her main source of daytime entertainment.
Thinking rationally about The Musician, there were probably more positives than negatives. One. He was musical, and I sang. Two. He was in the range of good-looking, and tall, which was often the exception among single solvent males. Mattias was 6 foot 2 so shoe decisions had been of the which-style variety rather than the how-emasculated-should-I-make-him-feel-tonight sort. And three, I was leaving for Zurich in a month. Surely a fling was as essential to the trip as stocking up on my favourite moisturizer in duty-free.
But, on the negative side, he was gigging at my friend’s wedding. That made him the hired help. He may not have been clearing tables or mixing drinks, but I was still in danger of becoming a cliché.
He sidled up to me after their set, crablike and slouchy, in an I-listen-to-urban-beats-while-wearing-my-jeans-too-low sway. He was possibly a little younger than I’d thought. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Did you have a nice time tonight?’
‘It was a nice wedding, thanks,’ I answered diplomatically. ‘My friends looked gorgeous. Do you play a lot of these things?’ He was definitely sexy. I suspected he knew it.
‘Yeah. We play whatever we can get.’
I chuckled, not because it was funny, but because I understood. Being a musician was hard. Not just to make a living (impossible for the vast majority of us), but to keep our sense of musician-ness in the face of a flailing, or possibly stillborn, career. The question that was always at the front of our minds was this: When could you call yourself a musician, instead of telling people what your ‘real’ job was when they asked? What made you a musician instead of an accountant? It wasn’t the money, surely. Nor was a record contract an accurate measure. Too many people spent years composing and playing for audiences but never signed a deal. And it couldn’t be the amount of time spent doing one versus the other. Maybe it was the knowledge that being a musician was more a part of you than ledgers with debits and credits. And there was ego involved. That was the hardest thing because, if you really weren’t getting anywhere, at what point did you have to stop calling yourself a musician with a day job and go back to being an accountant who was musical? When did it start to get ridiculous to define yourself in a way that demanded performance, and yet not perform? ‘I sing a bit, and write some stuff,’ I told him. ‘Mostly ballads, piano accompaniment, that kind of thing.’
‘Cool. Have you been doing it long?’
It was a test. It was couched in a nice smile, but he was asking me how seriously I took myself as an artist. ‘I’ve been performing since uni, writing since I was a kid.’ Read: I’d earned my stripes. ‘You?’
‘Same, though I’ve only been with this band for three years. We get steady work so it’s got roots now, and we get quite a few referrals.’
‘I imagine it’s great to get on the wedding circuit. Do you play all over the country?’
‘Yeah, wherever the gigs are. What about you? Do you get about much?’
Again, there was an edge of comparison in his question. I sighed. Not content to limit my humiliation to the vampire fiasco, my agent booked me another gig last week. She promised it would be better. It was only better in dress. I got to wear my own clothes while serenading a room full of businessmen intent on drinking their lunches. ‘Well, I haven’t done a regular gig recently. I’ve been pretty busy with work.’ My excuse sounded inadequate; it sounded like an excuse. It was an excuse. I was definitely sliding into accountant-who’s-musical territory.
‘Listen, I’m sorry to rush, but I’ve got to help pack up and catch a ride back with the guys. Maybe we could get a drink together some time?’
‘Sure, I’d like that. Hang on, I’ve got a card here. You can email me.’
He glanced at the card. ‘Your name is B.? Like M from James Bond? Are you an agent?’
I laughed like I’d never heard that before. ‘I could tell you but, well, you know. It’s what I’ve always been called.’
‘Well, it was nice to meet you, B. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.’
As he turned to leave, my tummy flipped. It was an excitable organ but I didn’t trust it one bit after my blind date.
Kat exercised no such reserve as we walked to the car park. ‘B., you should definitely go out with the cellist.’
‘Bass player, darling,’ said James. ‘I agree, B. I always thought you should be with someone more musical.’
‘Really?’ This was the kind of thing your friends never told you when you were actually going out with the guy they were talking about. ‘I thought you liked Mattias.’
‘Oh, we did. We do. We love him. But he’s not a musician. If you’re not going to be with Mattias, you should be with a musician.’
‘Thanks for your advice. But I’d like to point out that it’s only been a few months since we broke up. I’m not desperate to jump into another relationship. I know women who’ve been alone for years and are absolutely content to stay that way.’
‘You aren’t talking about that old lady,’ Kat said.
‘Marjorie. Yes.’
‘B., she’s ninety years old and lives in a care home. Are you sure you want to use her as your role model?’
‘I’m just saying, she’s perfectly happy. I don’t need you pairing me up all the time. Thanks anyway.’
‘Senile does not equal happy, B.’
‘She’s not senile. And I’m not comparing myself to her.’ Though there were certainly a lot of people worse off than Marjorie.