Unlike those friends of mine whose lives have followed a more traditional, responsible path involving the firm commitment to a career, the settling down with the right woman and the inevitable house purchasing and baby-making that follows, for me, any time spent awake much before midday on a Sunday is strange and alien. It is time that is largely expendable, even superfluous. Not for me the trips to Ikea or the nearest seventeen acre supermarket for the weekly shop, no regular 6.30am little-human screaming alarm calls here.
No. The clock in the corner and I have a simple understanding. If the digits start with anything less than a 9 then we both pretend that I didn't wake up at all and I drag the duvet back up to my chin. Between 9 and 10 it depends largely on whether I'm too dehydrated to not get up for a drink and what time I crawled into bed in the first place. Between 10 and 11 is a perfectly acceptable point at which to start one's day and anything later than that is something I'll congratulate myself on since it means that I can feel as if I've caught up on all the sleep I'll invariably have missed during the week. Once I am up however, it’s just me and the dressing gown and the kettle and TV for an hour at least before I even think about showering.
Not even Mel could shake me from this. Rest is what Sundays were built for and no amount of nagging, banging about and changes to the Sunday Trading Laws are going to alter my thinking. Look, even God agrees with me on this.
So the reason that I was up and dressed by 9.30 the following Sunday had more to do with being a little fuzzy mouthed and fuzzy headed from the evening of pouring lager down my throat and eating pork scratchings. And one other thing.
I woke up at 8.45 and went straight for the glass of water on the bedside unit. I then frowned at the clock and rolled over to the warm part of the bed and closed my eyes again. There behind them, uninvited and unannounced, was young Sally.
And there too, she stayed.
I tried to blink her away, tried to think of something else, of what I needed to do today, how lazy I could or could not be, which chores needed doing, whether I'd do some reading or just watch a film or two. She proved resilient to all of this and it didn't take too long before I recognised the lost cause of sleeping anymore and so instead I tried to rinse her away with a hot shower which did a smashing job of waking me up and rinsing away the fuzzy headedness but not rinsing away Sally. And a vigorous scrubbing with the toothbrush and the Colgate banished the fuzzy mouthedness, but couldn't get near Sally.
The attempt to busy myself by rattling pots and pans and whipping up a substantial breakfast only led to thoughts of whipping up a substantial breakfast for two, and an image of carrying a tray of bacon, eggs, toast and a cafetiere of fresh aromatic coffee to her lying naked in my bed reading the first chapter of the book I'm half way through became all too vivid.
Going to the shops to stock up on practical household items and groceries proved briefly effective since I really did have to concentrate on what I needed to put in my basket since I'm not a shopping list sort of a bloke. But this just segued into a gentle fantasy of the two of us shopping together, me surprising her with my choices of fresh fruit and veg and how I avoid the ready meals section of the cold cabinet, her smiling mischievously as she places two large bars of chocolate in on top of the bag of apples I've put there.
I've got acres of quiet time to fill and only my imagination to fill it.
My phone meanwhile remains resolutely un-rung and text message free. It doesn't care how many times I take it out of my pocket to check if I have a missed call. My fervent desire to see that little closed envelope icon pop up on its little colour screen is greeted with the flat indifference of the inanimate object.
Shitty bastard little thing.
Many modern Christians seek solace in trying times and testing circumstances through their faith, helping to find the reassurance they crave by asking themselves the question; what would Jesus do? I can scarcely think of a less suitable person to consult for advice on pulling birds than JC. Although he may well offer counsel against the repeated used of the phrase ’pulling birds’.
In any event, I'm of neither the traditional nor populist opinion on matters Christian (or indeed any faith) so in my desperation thoughts turn to wondering what the Book of Luke might have to say on the topic. I refrain from pursuing this though since I'm reasonably sure that it will involve being told to shut up and the almost inevitable suggestion that I distract myself from the torment of this deafening silence with a deafening action movie. In this he is probably right.
If I make a further attempt to call now, I'm coming off as desperate and needy, impatient and insecure; four things I most certainly do not want to seem, so it’s up with the volume, in with the tea bag and on with the Arnie DVD.
Desperate, needy, impatient and insecure are always good to avoid, but the sound of gunfire and loud cursing in a Germanic accent do not provide one with the most seductive aural backdrop. Shit.
When it rings, it’s as if I that part of my memory that knows what phones are has been erased and in the eternal seconds that pass whilst I attempt to compose myself before answering the call that is quite clearly labelled on the phone's screen as Sally, I even consider not answering, first because I'm not convinced that I will sufficiently compose myself to actually speak with her - you know, using words and stuff - and then because I'm briefly annoyed to be so flustered that perhaps I should exact some small measure of revenge.
Yeah Sally, now it's your turn to get voicemailed. Leave me a message and see how you like the waiting. I'll just wait until the former Governor of California annihilates this crowded roomful of people before I even decide to listen to your message. Maybe I'll watch the whole-
‘Hello?’
‘Tom?’
Lump in throat size of orange. Frantic, Olympian standard fumbling with remote control. Pause. Fucking pause you fucking fucker.
‘Hello, is this Tom?’
I'm afraid Tom is unavailable to take your call at the moment, as he is a fucking pussy.
‘Hello?’ Sally's voice pitches up at the end in what sounds like slight confusion but could very easily be the beginnings of annoyance.
‘Hello? Sally?’ I say with all the authority and command in my voice I can muster. Fuck all.
‘Tom, hi.’
‘Hi there. Couldn't hear you for a second, must be a dodgy line.’ As an excuse it is entirely plausible, undermined only by the fact that I am a palpably terrible liar.
‘Hang on; I'll go into my bedroom. Reception's a bit better there.’ Bedroom? Did she say bedroom? Be reasonable woman! Have you even the slightest idea of the imagery now conjured up in my mind? Good God, all she said was bedroom and my composure’s gone again.
If either of Luke or Ed were on hand right now I'd be demanding that they slap some sense into me, but I make do with catching my own reflection in a mirror and being so appalled at the look of abject fear on my stupid face, like I've just discovered that beer, breasts and televised sport were simply part of an elaborate dream and do not actually exist, that I manage to wrest a degree of control back.
That degree turns out to be a very small one and lasts right up until the part of the conversation where she says this:
’This week is bad for me, because I don't know which days I'm actually on, or evenings for that matter. But I'm free today.’
Arnold Schwarzenegger can fuck right off and I'd gladly tell him that to his face if he was here. She's free today. This news is great of course, but also terrible. Not long ago I was daydreaming little scenes of domestic bliss of breakfast in bed and cosy little trips round the local grocery shop. This is not the correct frame of mind for a date.
Also, how have we already arrived at a date? I've barely even turned on the charm yet, scarcely bestowed a compliment or cracked a joke. She's whipped away that small degree of control I thought I had and she has entirely assumed command of things. As if she didn't already have it.
All this pondering on the march Sally has just stolen fr
om me takes place in my head of course, resulting in a lengthy silence. If a girl you like suggests a time to meet up for a date, a lengthy pause is almost certainly the last thing she wants to hear. Or not hear. However that works.
’Oh no,’ she says. Oh no indeed. ’I've just realised you didn't actually ask me out. I mean I assumed that's what we were talking about, what with the phone calls and all. But maybe you were just being friendly and wanting to talk first and I've gone in and started organising to meet -’
I interrupt her here not out of rudeness but the opposite. I simply must do the decent thing here and switch places with her. I'm the idiot here, allow me.
’No, no I did. In fact I did the other night didn't I? And if I didn't, I should have and in fact I owe you every kind of apology for not making that abundantly clear.’
’Wow, ok. How many kinds of apology are there?’
’I don't know. Use your imagination.’ That's not how that was supposed to sound.
Her turn for a little pause. So this is going terribly so far.
’So today then. That now today or tonight today?’ I plough on.
’Now? How close are you? You aren't stalking me are you? Not already?’
She's being confident and playful. She's flirting. Simple, straight-forward, flirting. The kind of thing that is entirely supposed to furnish a conversation revolving around the organising of a date. Having made the 'use your imagination' remark however, which sounded altogether over-confident and suggestive, I am loathe to venture further over this line and in sounding over-confident, I have managed to invoke the precise opposite sensation in myself.
Thusly the remainder of the conversation lapses into a slightly stilted and stiff affair with the smallest whiff of awkwardness that means by the time we agree on a time and say our see-you-laters I'm already detecting an inflection of regret in her voice which may or may not be there at all.
The flush of excitement and release I feel when I hang up and can vent the pent up tension evaporates, or rather is incinerated in a hot burst of panic. Here I am unable to compose myself for a simple telephone conversation in which she has expressly telephoned me to organise a date, and so which should reasonably hold no fear for me. Now however, I must actually go and meet her in person. Sober too.
It really is a terrifying way to have to conduct oneself. I'll be expected to stop hiding behind poor jokes and half-baked witticisms next and when that happens I truly am finished. At no point must she peek behind the curtain. The public persona is disappointing enough.
As the time wears on before our date arrives I am reminded of a line that Nigel Havers says to Christian Bale in the film Empire of the Sun; 'Try not to think so much,' he beseeches the poor young chap. It's useful advice and though it is aimed at attempting to help appease the terrible mental trauma of a vulnerable ten year old in war torn China after the invasion by Japanese Imperial forces separates him from his parents, it has a certain resonance with an idiotic over-analysing twenty something with a handful of low-level neuroses. I only wish it had occurred before I'd set about picking out my clothes.
Chapter 10