Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
I t was mid-week and Werner was arriving from Germany this very afternoon. He wanted to meet in a bar in Sloane Square. Werner had come all the way to London to see me and I felt like I had a duty to go out with him, even though I didn't want to risk messing things up with Harry.
At work, Neil was in high spirits––the kind of spirits that you were in when you were in love with a beautiful woman.
This was a mixture of good and bad news; good because I could technically be the boss’s son and start taking the piss at work; bad because I didn’t want my mum to date an utter penis-hole like him.
Mum had been in a great mood over the last few days and had dropped the hint that there was a new man on the scene. Dating apps really did have a lot to answer for.
There was also some other news that reached me through the relationship grapevine.
Ben had acquired a new play partner and when he told me that he was a skinny, four-eyed, red-headed copper with a slavery fetish from South London, I somehow had the feeling that I might know just the man he was talking about.
This all went to show that while there were millions of folks bumming around London, it was an incredibly small place as far as the world of dating went. Tonight would prove that more than anything.
I met Werner in a bar in Sloane Square where you couldn't move for tweed jackets and elbow patches, which was exactly the opposite reason why I wore my tweed jacket with elbow patches. That was just an unhappy coincidence.
The date was off to a bad start as he looked nothing like his picture. On top of that, we simply did not get on. I found him incredibly bossy, and after about an hour or so I couldn't even look at him. Of course, this wasn't his fault, it was just that we were simply incompatible.
He was into all sorts of weird bands I’d never heard of, and had tickets to go and see some European electronica outfit at the Camden Roundhouse and on top of that, tickets to go and see The Muppets live at the O2 for the Friday night––and I loved The Muppets.
I parked my phone in what’s known to some as ‘affair mode’ (airplane mode), just in case Harry called or texted whilst I was out dealing with this situation.
After a further couple of hours staring at the floor, Werner suggested, no, told me that we were going back to his hotel.
He’d mentioned how much it cost a night more than twenty-six times, so I felt I had to at least go back for a drink in the hotel bar before coming up with an escape plan.
Although if I hadn’t come up with one by now, it was unlikely that I would within the next hour or so.
I sorted out an Uber to get us back to the Ampersand Hotel and we arrived there at about 10:30pm.
There was some kind of work party going on in a part of the bar, so I suggested we avoid that area and grab a table at the opposite end of the establishment.
A waiter sauntered over to us, and as we ordered our drinks, I checked out the guys at the work-do.
I mean, that was what you tended to do when you were on an awful date, anyway.
As I did, I saw a very familiar face and suddenly all of the blood rushed from my head to my toes, like I’d been on some horrific ride at Alton Towers.
Harry was standing over there, chatting to an important-looking suited man who seemed like he may be in a position to offer a promotion or two.
Well, that was me screwed if he looked over.
I made the waiter stay for as long as possible so that I could hide behind him, then immediately faked a toilet break in order to gather my thoughts and work out how to dig myself out of this sloppy, wet ditch.
I slipped off unnoticed and made it to the toilets.
After admiring the exceptionally immaculate South Kensington hotel tiling for a few seconds, I did that thing that people do in films when they’re in a bit of fix––I splashed water on my face and looked at myself in the mirror.
Then of course I realised that there were no paper towels.
I swiped my phone out of affair mode just to check if I’d received any texts from Harry. There were a couple of double vibrates. Sure enough, the first one was from Harry:
‘What ch’up to? I’m at some shit work do. Bored.’
Normally a simple enough text to deal with, but I had terrifying visions of texting him back some bullshit, then walking out of the toilets straight into my potential future life partner.
In fact: shit. There was a massive possibility that this could happen. What I needed right now was a disguise. Short of getting an Amazon Prime drone to hotfoot me a Groucho Marx glasses and moustache combo, I was screwed. Plus, it wasn’t 2067 yet.
I replied to Harry’s text with some utter bullshit about staying in and spending the evening trying to find something to watch on Netflix. Idiot.
I flicked to the next text, which was from an unknown number.
Never a good sign at the best of times, more than likely some straggler’s number from yester-month that I’d deleted.
In this case, however, it was something way more sinister than a guy bored of the London dating scene looking through his little black book.
This… was an angry husband. And without wanting to sound like a Marks & Spencer’s advert, this was no ordinary angry husband.
‘ANSWER MY FUCKING CALLS AND STOP FUCKING MY FELLA.’
Within seconds, my voicemail alert flashed up and I was almost too terrified to listen to it, but bit the bullet.
Right, you fucker. You’re in a lot of trouble. I’ve just got out of jail and found your fucking number on my husband’s phone, so I’m gonna hunt you down. You fucking go near my Harry again and I’ll find you. I’m gonna be watching him, so I’ll find you, boy [cue menacing laughter].
Harry? What? Well, this had become the perfect fuck-storm. I couldn't work out whether I was more terrified or angry. Actually, I could. I was more terrified.
This evening was becoming progressively worse by the second.
First of all, I was petrified of bumping into Harry, and now I was even more scared of bumping into his husband.
If he’d seen my dating profile, he’d know what I looked like.
He must have followed him here, so if he saw me, I was toast––even if I was with another guy.
Or maybe he’d beat me up twice for cheating on his husband with someone else. Oh, this was a right old Eton Mess.
On top of all this, I realised that I’d been in this toilet for a while, and Werner was bound to be getting twitchy. Well, at least I didn't have to worry about getting nabbed by Harry now. I’d clearly got way more on him.
Either way, I had to formulate a plan to get out of that bar.
There was no way that Werner was going to want to go to another bar now, and I couldn't just walk out on him. There was only one thing for it… get him to the hotel room and try to avoid having sex with him until the morning. I purposely hadn’t brought out any condoms or lube, so that was half the battle won anyway.
I had an idea. I ran out of the toilet, climbed a flight of stairs, and gave Werner a call. He answered and made some lame joke about the fact I’d rung Domino’s, which annoyed me, because that’s totally my joke.
I pretended that I'd just seen my boss in the hotel and that I had to hide because I’d bunked off work today and if he saw me, I’d get the sack.
He told me not to be stupid, and that if I got the sack, that’d be fine because I could hang out with him for the next few days.
Not fine—awful. He just wasn't getting this.
“I’m not coming back out there,” I said, stubbornly, shaking my head like Chewbacca outside a recently disengaged trash-compactor.
He sternly told me not to be so stupid again, then eventually agreed to come and meet me.
I waited for ages before I received another call from Werner asking where I was.
It turns out that ‘first floor’ means ‘ground floor’ in German, and he was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me.
I told him to come up the stairs, but he started acting confused and I ended up reluctantly going down to collect him .
The moment that my foot touched the bottom stair, of course Harry walked past.
“There you are, Danny!” shouted Werner as Harry’s head whooshed round.
Our eyes met.
“I’ll meet you upstairs,” I said, in a shaky voice, giving Harry some Grade ‘A’ Stink-Eye.
“What the fuck?” said Harry.
“Impossible. You don’t even know the room number,” said Werner.
“What the fuck? Room? Silly? Well, isn’t this very fucking cosy?” snapped Harry.
I ushered Werner up the stairs, maintaining the stink-eye on Harry. I was far too angry to even look at him, let alone say anything to him.
“Er…” said Harry, hands slapping on his hips, one by one.
I looked away and just hurried up the stairs until I heard Harry’s repeated exhalations of ‘WTFs’ fade out.
When we arrived in the room, I felt my phone vibrate twice.
I hadn’t switched it back to affair mode as now there was no need.
However, there was the risk of Harry’s husband hassling me, so I made a mental note to go and ‘use the toilet’ once we were inside so that I could do my last bit of Harry admin before I blocked the shit out of him.
Sure enough, the text was from Harry.
‘Wanker.’
Enough said. I blocked him and his crazy husband’s numbers. Job done. The husband only knew my first name, and although it was unclear whether or not he knew what I looked like, I was confident that Harry wouldn’t have told him my surname, so I was probably in the clear. Hopefully.
I spent the rest of the evening avoiding snogging and having sexual contact with Werner, while he bored me about electronica bands. He somehow didn’t seem to have registered the severity of the incident with Harry on the stairs. Whatever the case, he was focussed on some hot lovin’ tonight.
Every time he made an advance, I snaked out of the way like something out of The Matrix .
I kept telling him to play me more of his rubbish music to distract him, then saw that he had an iPad, so sparked up Netflix and literally chilled until he fell asleep, fed up that we couldn't find anything to watch. Classic.
I ended up staying the night, mainly because I was too terrified to leave the place in case the jailbird was out there waiting for me.
If he was indeed following Harry and caught up with him, he could have told him that I was there in a fit of rage and he could be waiting for me to appear in the lobby.
The next morning, I set the alarm for 5:30am and left at 5:45, pretending that I had to be in work for 6:30.
I bit the bullet and told Werner that there simply was no chemistry between us and that I was sorry he’d spent all of that money to come over and see me, to which he laughed in my face and told me not to be so stupid and that he had many, many back-up dates. Phew… I guess.
After my little taste of treading the boards at that works bonding exercise, I foolishly decided to try another stand-up gig, which I had booked for tonight. Well, I was talked into doing it with my workmate, Tommy, who now had a real taste for performing.
I went for breakfast at a greasy spoon near work. I was in a totally stinking mood as Harry’s betrayal was just starting to sink in. And as if I couldn’t feel worse, a text from yet another rogue number popped up on my phone with the message:
‘I’M COMING FOR YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT.’
Could this day get any worse?