George Michael
FAITH
Janet followed me from the hallway to the living room, where I’d already got a teapot, two cups and two saucers waiting on the coffee table for us both.
She’d been in charge of bringing the biscuits, though I guessed from the Louie’s Bakery bag she was holding that she’d decided to up the ante and bring something slightly more exciting.
I lumped myself down in my armchair with one leg tucked beneath me and reached for the cigarettes that were on the table.
David had started to leave them lying around the place – something to do with his writer persona, I assumed – and it made it that bit harder to resist the pull of them.
I sparked up and exhaled the first plume in the general direction of the open window, and that’s when I noticed Janet was still standing in the doorway.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know what’s more perplexing,’ she answered as she looked around the space, ‘the fact that you’re smoking again or the state of this room.’
I mirrored her look around. In the last week, since my official diagnosis of heartache, I’d spent so much time here that I’d lost track of the state of it all.
Every evening after work I’d watched a different romantic comedy – Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones’s Diary, there had even been some that didn’t involve Hugh Grant – and I’d hurriedly made notes on them all.
I’d jotted down plotlines and cock-ups and vain attempts at winning back the girl – because it was always the girl who needed to be won over, it seemed, with the exception of Mark Darcy.
There were sheets of notepaper, lists galore, I’d even brought in a corkboard from the spare room to start pinning ideas to.
‘Oh, that,’ I answered.
‘Yes, that.’
Janet gently sat down on the sofa opposite me as though frightened to disturb anything. She looked around again, then at me. ‘When did you start smoking?’
‘When my husband became the next great British novelist.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Is that a reference to a reality show?’
I laughed and billowed smoke out at the same time. ‘No, but it’d be a great concept.’
‘Put a load of writers in front of typewriters?’
‘Ask for a different genre every week?’
‘Give them an unattainable word count?’
‘I’d watch that.’
Janet opened her mouth to answer but then seemed to think better of it. She shook her head instead and said, ‘But seriously, Pat, what’s happened in here?’
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. ‘I’m planning.’
‘Murder, or…’
‘No, romance. But it feels a bit like a slow death.’
‘You’re not making any sense. Do you want a cream horn?’ She held the bag out to me and I shrugged. I could go for a cream horn, I thought as I struggled one free from the bag; cigarette in one hand and pastry in the other. ‘What is it that you’re planning?’
‘Have you ever forgiven a married man for lying to you about being married?’
There was an observable penny drop moment, apparent from Janet’s expression. ‘You’re trying to win her back.’
‘I can’t just let her go.’
‘And while I applaud that, I really do’ – she struggled to free her own pastry as she spoke – ‘it’s been, how long? Well over a month?’ She waited for an answer and I nodded. ‘Do you not think you’ve rather… What’s that expression? Missed the boat?’
I winced at her phrasing. ‘No.’
‘Righto. Well, that was a good talk.’ Janet sank her teeth into the pastry and cream squeezed up and out, as far as her nose. ‘What does David make of all of this?’
‘I haven’t asked.’
‘And he hasn’t commented?’ She looked around the room again. ‘Patti, you look like a mad scientist. I’m sure I’ve seen things like this in true crime documentaries. You can’t blame me for being worried, and I’m sure David is, too.’
‘David has his own concerns.’
I wondered whether we’d said his name too many times and accidentally summoned him.
Only seconds later he came rushing into the room wearing his smartest jeans, a shining brown belt and matching brogues.
He was topless, holding a light blue linen shirt in one hand and a light cream linen shirt in the other.
‘White or blue?’
‘It’s cream.’
‘Don’t antagonise me, Janet,’ he snapped back at her. ‘Patti?’
I took another draw on the cigarette and then a bite from the horn. ‘Where are you eating?’
‘What on earth does that matter?’
‘Just answer the question.’ I stretched forward to rest the pastry in my saucer. I couldn’t multi-task when there was so much riding on the answer to my question. Besides which, I imagined that I was starting to look like a poor woman’s version of Absolutely Fabulous. ‘Where are you eating?’
‘That new Italian place on the high street.’
‘Go and find your dark denim shirt instead.’
‘Double denim?’ Janet chimed in.
‘Good point.’ I gestured with an extended index finger and then turned to David. ‘Put on your dark mustard chinos with it instead. The shoes and the belt are fine.’
‘But these are my nicest jeans,’ he protested.
‘But you’re going for an Italian meal.’ I stubbed the cigarette out in the nearby ashtray. ‘And in the twenty plus years that I’ve known you, you’ve never been able to eat anything that involves pasta without dropping sauce down you.’
David looked from one shirt to the other, then to his jeans, then to me. ‘I bloody love you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ I answered, though he’d already rushed from the room.
‘It’s a mad house. Tea?’ Janet had reached forward to pour herself a cup.
‘Please.’
‘What’s got your wife so beaten up?’ she asked, nodding in the direction that David had fled. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so keen and edgy about dinner out with a teenager before.’
‘Ah, but it isn’t a teenager. Thanks, love,’ I said, taking my tea from her. ‘It’s the infamous Eudora.’
Janet bolted upright. ‘Your girlfriend’s friend?’
‘She isn’t my girlfriend. And yes.’
‘But I thought she thought David was a tart?’
‘Well, now she thinks he’s a kind man who’s just found out his wife is a lesbian.’ I shrugged. ‘And apparently that warrants dinner at the new Italian place on the high street.’
‘And you’re okay with this?’ she asked in a tone that suggested I shouldn’t be.
‘David has explained the situation to her, Janet, calm down. He called her, it was a stroke of genius really, because apparently they hadn’t even spoken much since…
The Reveal, let’s call it. He felt awkward, if you can believe it.
I didn’t know David had it in him.’ I paused to sip my tea before carrying on.
‘Anyway, in amidst my romance binge, David had the bright idea of actually explaining things to Eudora. She’s a smart woman, said it sounded like nonsense to start with, but the more they talked, I don’t know, he seemed just to win her over slowly.
You know David.’ I let a pregnant pause elbow between us.
‘He can be quite persuasive.’ A small creep of red appeared on Janet’s neck, peering up from behind her polo-neck jumper.
‘So, if there’s any chance at all of this information filtering back to Sheila, then yes, I absolutely support his decision to take the woman for a bowl of pasta and a conflab. ’
‘And in the meantime?’ She looked around the many notes that cluttered the floor. ‘You plan to re-enact iconic scenes from film scripts in the hope that it might turn things around?’
‘There’s something quite dangerous about having nothing to lose, isn’t there?’ I answered, winked, and reached forward for my pastry to pair with my tea. ‘Tell me about your love life.’
‘Oh.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t think we’re quite done with yours yet.’
‘Right’ – David reappeared, arms spread wide as though offering himself to us both – ‘date with Eudora outfit take two. What are our thoughts?’ He held up a hand in Janet’s direction. ‘And when I say our, I mean Patti’s.’
‘If you were Hugh Grant,’ I answered, ‘I’d let you take me to the Italian on the high street.’ After seeing him in quite so many romantic roles, it was impossible not to find the loveable dope at least slightly charming.
‘Patti, that’s…’ David put a hand on his chest. ‘That’s a lovely thing to say.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Janet butted in. ‘But that’s beside the point, I suppose.’
‘Given that I don’t have deep-rooted psychological issues with my mother, I’m probably excluded from your pool of potential dating applicants anyway,’ he shot back.
‘Honestly, you two.’ They were worthy of popcorn and 3D glasses. ‘David, you look superb. Janet, you still have cream on your nose.’ She immediately wiped at it and then licked her finger clean. ‘When are you leaving?’
David checked his watch. ‘Five minutes ago. Patti, my love, my light, my all–’
‘What do you want?’
‘Is there any chance at all that in the next two hours you might be able to make the living room look less like your heart has exploded over it?’
I glanced around. ‘I mean, I probably could, but why?’
‘Just in case.’ He winked.
‘You old dog,’ Janet answered, her tone lighter now. ‘You actually think you’ll bring her home?’
‘Oh, David!’
‘What? I like to be prepared.’
‘I bet you five pounds that you come home alone tonight,’ Janet said, radiating smugness.
‘Oh, Janet, don’t be crass. I wouldn’t take your pension from you.’ He closed the space in two long strides and kissed the top of my head. ‘So, could you? Clean up, I mean.’
If the disgraceful amount of romance films that I’d watched in the last week and a half had taught me anything, it was that blind optimism – and a little stupidity – was key in all matters of the heart.
From the little I knew of Eudora, she didn’t strike me as the type of woman who would be so easily drawn in by a man trying to get into her underwear.
From the lot that I knew of David, though, I knew better than to underestimate him.
So I begrudgingly agreed, tucking my arm around his waist and pulling him in for a squeeze before he could bolt for the door.
‘Have fun and tell her I said hello.’ I winced as I said it. ‘If that isn’t too strange.’
‘You’ll never get her home tonight, David, I can near as damn it promise you that much,’ Janet added by way of goodbye.
‘Oh, ye of little faith, Janet, ye of little faith,’ came the reply, punctuated by the slam of the front door.
‘I’ll bet you a fiver he doesn’t,’ she said, and I laughed.
David might have minded, but I had no qualms about taking Janet’s money from her.