I dragged my duvet to the living room, dumped it on the sofa. Takeaway. Time to order a takeaway. Thai? Indian? Pizza? Chinese? Food. I had to eat. Something. Anything. My stomach twisted in on itself as I paced the living room floor.
Was he eating? Greg. Was he eating? Working? Sleeping? Fucking? What was he doing? I laid the palms of my hands on my stomach, trying to press away the churning. Trying to get rid of the insanity.
Sean, my last boyfriend, the one before I became single and celibate, was surprisingly tolerant of my insanity. He didn’t know the half of it – I hid the crazy very well from him – he was just good about the bits I couldn’t hide from him under my normal façade of cool, elegant indifference.’ (Yes, all right, brain, it wasn’t that funny.)
I’d met him when Renée and I went to talk to a computer company about sponsoring the Festival. The Festival was mainly funded by West Yorkshire Council, which is why we were located in West Yorkshire Council offices, but we had to get other cash to help it along. Renée, despite appearances to the contrary, was excellent at charming people into parting with their cash. She knew all the right things to say: what to promise; what to hint at promising.
I’d arranged this meeting and she’d come with me. As we sat down at the long oval meeting table, I had a surreptitious gander around the table and my eyes met Sean’s. And stayed there. He wasn’t take-your-breath-away gorgeous, but he had sparkle. When I glanced his way I saw sparkles. There are times when you see someone or something and you know you’re going to have them. It’s not lust; not ‘I’ve got to have it or I’ll die’; it simply is. This feeling, it only happens a couple of times in your life, I’m sure, but you and that person, or those shoes or that car click. It was meant for you. There was no justifying it, or trying to afford it. It was made for you. Which is why I saw sparkles when I looked at Sean. He was meant for me.
His butter-blond hair was cut very short, his dark hazel eyes stared at me under long eyelashes, his lips parted into a knee-weakening smile. We’d openly stared at each other, smiling as though we shared a private joke all the way through the meeting. I kicked myself later when I left without getting his full name. Or managing to project my phone number into his head. He was meant for me, after all. Two days later, when Jen, Matt and I went clubbing I’d bumped into someone. And there he was – Mr Sparkle from the meeting. For the first time ever I abandoned my friends and spent the rest of the night chatting with and snogging Sean. We’d agreed Fate had meant us to be together and, after a cab had dropped us off at our respective homes, we talked on the phone until the sun came up.
He didn’t play games, either. He bloody called me. He called me when he said he would, he called me when he hadn’t said he would. We went out, we stayed in, we had great sex. It wasn’t until the three-month mark that he found out why he shouldn’t cross me. He was off, dismissive, with me twice on the phone and I shut down. Stopped taking his calls, didn’t return his emails, ignored his texts. That’s what I was like. When someone cooled off for no particular reason or even if they cooled off for a particular reason, I headed for the door at high speed. I ran out before they could. Sean, bless him, left me a long message saying he cared about me and didn’t want to finish with me. And that he was sorry he’d been off that time, he’d just got scared that we were getting too serious too soon. And he wouldn’t let me go without fighting for me, so I could ignore him, but if I still had any feelings for him it’d be easier all round to let him apologise face to face. Like I say, he was good. Had it been me, I would’ve blackened his name to anyone who’d listen, then plotted revenge.
I sat on the sofa with a cushion on my lap, my silver mobile nestling in the folds of the cushion. I twisted the corner of the blue cushion and stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Normal behaviour for me in the first three months of a relationship. But, rather unusually, I could feel bile rise from my stomach to my throat. What the hell is Greg doing? Why give me that performance the other day and then completely blank me?
Yes, he’d given me his black book and his mobile numbers, but that didn’t stop women calling him. Inviting him over. Starting phone sex . . .
‘STOP!’ I screamed out loud. ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it.’ I picked up the video remote and pressed a button to rewind the video to watch the bits I’d missed, but nothing happened. I glanced down, I was trying to rewind the video with my mobile. My mobile felt nothing like the video remote. I hurled the stupid thing across the room. It glanced off the edge of the armchair and landed on Scooby Doo. (I admit it, I own cuddly toys. My name is Amber Salpone and I own cuddly toys. But they’re hot-water bottle covers. And they are Scooby and Bagpuss. And I only have them because I get cold. A lot.) ‘Don’t you dare move,’ I snarled at it. ‘And heaven forbid you ring.’ I started patting around my sofa for the proper remote control without taking my eyes off the screen.
Nothing. It was off on another of its jaunts. I moved the cushion off my lap to start scrabbling around for the remote.
After Sean, I’d decided to avoid relationships, to be single and celibate because I didn’t need to do this any more. I didn’t need to spend time obsessing about one particular person. I’d broken once when a photographer during the Festival last September made a pass at me in our press room at the hotel. He’d been all right and we had two illicit snogs in the press room. He’d asked me out to dinner after the Festival but I’d turned him down. I couldn’t face this. The anxiety, the floor-pacing, the sickness, the fear – it was hard on my carpets.
Once I’d made my decision, I’d actually felt a weight lift from my shoulders, a mist dissipate from my eyes, a sea drain away from my brain. OK, I didn’t feel the extremes of emotion, the rawness of human interaction that I got when I was with someone, but that was no bad thing. I was liberated. Free from being a slave to wanting a relationship. Or wondering if whenever I went out I might meet someone. The shackles of caring about finding someone were loosened from my wrists, ankles, neck and heart and I felt a million times lighter. Right up until this moment in time.
Greg had done all the chasing. He’d seduced me. He’d convinced me to give it a go with him. Now he was blanking me. Before he’d left on Tuesday we’d made vague arrangements to meet up over the weekend. ‘I’ll call you about it,’ were his last words as we kissed goodbye. And he hadn’t. I could ring him, but why say it if he’s not going to do it?
Lying on the sofa, I slipped my hand right down past the cushions, into the covered frame, hunting for the errant remote. Nothing. I started to withdraw my hand but couldn’t. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I tugged harder, feeling the pull in my wrist but not my hand release. I got up, hunched over my arm so I could get more traction behind it as I pulled. I pulled again. Nada. Nothing. My hand wouldn’t budge. It was probably swelling up as I tried to free it.
That’s it, I’ll be stuck here for the rest of my life. My mobile’s halfway across the room, I can’t ring for help. My neighbours have gone away, so I can’t yell for help. I’m going to die of thirst. And, aaahhhh!, there’s the loo. I shouldn’t have thought that, now I need to go. Desperately. What the hell a—
RING-RING! My home phone. I tugged my hand.
The phone rang again, I tugged at my hand again. Harder this time. So hard my hand came out and I toppled back off the sofa and landed on the floor as the phone rang a third time. Lying on my back, I reached out and picked up the phone, put it to my ear.
‘ All right, so I gave in first,’ Greg whispered.
Between deep, winded breaths, I said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve been waiting for you to call,’ he whispered.
‘Oh,’ I replied.
‘So . . .’ he said, still in hushed tones.
‘So . . . What?’
‘Why didn’t you call me?’
‘You said you’d call when you left on Tuesday.’
‘Yes, but as far as I know you were pressurised into everything. I was hoping you’d call so I’d know you
were into this,’ he said, still whispering.
‘Where are you?’ I asked, wondering why he was whispering.
‘At home, helping Matt to pack.’
‘So why are you whispering?’
‘I don’t want Matt to hear. He’s been on at me to call my mystery woman because I’ve been in such a filthy mood since I last saw her, and I didn’t want him to guess it was you.’
‘As long as you’re not whispering because you’ve got some woman sleeping in your bed.’
The line crackled with his silence. ‘Is that why you haven’t called me? Because you think I’ve been up to my old tricks?’ he eventually asked.
The way he said it made it seem unreasonable to think that. ‘How many women have you flirted with in the past three days?’ I asked, neatly evading the question. ‘And that includes people who’ve come on to you first and you’ve responded to.’
Greg paused. Then paused some more. Then paused some more after that. ‘Define flirted with.’
‘ All right, I know you’re an incurable flirt. How many women in the past few days have you given the impression to that you’d at least snog them, if not sleep with them?’
Another pause.
My heart sank.
‘Old habits die hard, Amber,’ he said, ‘but now we’re together, I won’t act on any of those habits.’
‘OK,’ I replied, half-heartedly. This was going to be a nightmare. I, paranoid, obsessively jealous, I, had hooked up with a man who’d single-handedly kept Durex in business for the past five years. Maybe I should end it now before he shags someone else and I’m forced to have him killed.
‘I’m serious,’ he was saying, ‘I’m serious about us. I want to do this. Do you?’
Sure, make out I’ve got the problem when you’re the one incapable of concentrating on one person. ‘Mm-hm,’ I replied.
I could hear him grin down the phone. ‘All right! All-right!’ he almost screeched, then he lowered his voice. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow? I’ll pick you up at eleven o’clock in the van, then after we’ve helped Matt to move we can go off and do our own thing. OK?’
‘OK,’ I replied.
‘Cool, talk to you tomorrow, sweetie. Bye.’
Two things occurred to me as I put down the phone:
1. I liked the easy way Greg called me sweetie. ‘Sweet’tee.’ It slipped tenderly from his tongue into my ears.
2. When the hell had I said I’d help Matt move?
‘Oh, put that box . . .’ Jen stood in the middle of her wide hallway and spun around, uming and ahhhing. Meanwhile, my arms were headed southward.
‘Ohhh . . . I don’t know,’ Jen conceded. ‘Matt? Matt!’
‘What?’ Matt called from the recesses of the bedroom.
‘Where do you want to put this box?’ she shouted.
‘Um . . .’ he called back.
I held a big red plastic box of issues of a tabloid paper that Matt had accumulated over the years. He’d kept the issues published on his birthday since he was twelve, plus special occasions like the Millennium, Euros ’96 and 2000, and the World Cups. And, I’m sure he thought he was being very clever, he’d hidden his porn mags inside most of the copies. Ironic? Possibly. Sleazy? Definitely. I’d discovered his ‘plan’ earlier when one of the newspapers had toppled out of the box. I’d gingerly slipped the thing back into its hiding place, scared of where it’d been – and what had been on it. If Matt wanted to read porn, fine. If Matt wanted to ‘use’ porn, his choice. But to be so sneaky about it . . . well, as I said, sleazy. Especially when Jen had an open mind about such things. Even if he thought she’d freak, all he had to do was chuck out the old lot and buy new ones. Probably a bit too complicated for Matt, though. Now, that wasn’t very nice, was it, Amber?
I pushed my mind elsewhere, trying to ignore the pain this deceptively heavy box was inflicting on me.
What an odd foursome we are, I thought. We were meant to be close in our quartet, but Greg was skulking around, acting as if the world was over because his best mate was moving out. No matter what I said, or how pleased he acted, he was one step away from committing hara-kiri.
Matt didn’t know his girlfriend well enough to know she wouldn’t mind if he read porn so he sneaked it into her house.
Jen still hadn’t told Matt that the last man she’d lived with, Tommy, had been calling her and asking to see her again and, whilst she hadn’t exactly said yes, she hadn’t exactly said no. She wouldn’t ever cheat on Matt, she just enjoyed the extra attention.
And, of course, I’d kept the biggest thing since Sean from Jen.
‘Coming through,’ Greg called, butting me lightly with the boxes he had in his arms.
‘’Aven’t decided on the cuttings yet, mate, so your stuff will ’ave ta wait,’ I said over my shoulder, affecting a Sarf London removal man’s voice.
‘Piss poor,’ Greg said, mimicking my accent but not quite getting there with his Yorkshire accent. ‘Would it be a crime to put ’em down in ’t ’all?’
‘Soz, mate, laydee says she don’t wont ’er new floorboards scratched.’
‘Sod this,’ Greg said. ‘OI, MEATHEAD. COME SORT OUT YOUR STUFF OR ME AND NECTAR ARE WALKING.’
As if by magic, the movee appeared. Greg knew him so well – the thought of having to unload the transit van himself had stopped him arranging his shoes in order of purchase or something equally anal but important to him. Matt flushed a shade of crimson when he saw what I was holding and almost broke his leg running to relieve me of it.
‘Cheers, m’dear,’ I said, ‘that was giving me arm-ache. Something I’m sure you’d know all about with that box.’ Matt pinked up even more. I stretched my fingers, trying to get the circulation going again.
‘I think Amber’s trying to tell you something,’ Jen said, smudging Matt’s cheek with a kiss. ‘Mr Shirker.’
‘DOES ANYONE CARE THAT MY ARMS ARE DROPPING OFF HERE?’ Greg bellowed so unexpectedly I jumped.
‘Oh for goodness sake,’ I said, spun to him and relieved him of the box on top – then almost dropped it under the sudden weight. Didn’t realise Greg was so strong. His biceps, exposed in his grey marl T-shirt, rippled under his browned, freckled skin, the dark brown hairs on his sculptured forearms glinted slightly in the unexpected sun of this February day. I glanced up from his arms to his face. Locks of his black hair were plastered to his damp forehead. Boy, he’s attractive, I thought.
I always knew that, but this wasn’t the same. My body, blood and hormones had suddenly clicked with his. I’d seen him for three years and thought he was gorgeous; I’d had sex with him and it’d been out of this world. But it was only at this moment that I started to fancy him. Independently of what was going on between us. It was simple, plain, pure attraction. I wanted this man. Badly.
His eyes watched me watch him and he asked, ‘What’s wrong?’ with his eyes and face.
My lips slipped into a slight smile. Nothing was wrong. Everything was different, that’s all.
The box weighing down my arms, I turned back to Matt and Jen – they were snogging the faces off each other, Matt’s porn box between.
‘Get a hotel room – or move in together, but do it quick because my arms are killing me,’ I joked.
I sneaked an ‘Aren’t they cute?’ look at Greg. He’d gone. He’d wantonly dumped the box of videos on the newly floor-boarded hallway and was halfway up the path to the van, rubbing the back of his head with the flat of his hand.
One ‘move’ later, we all flopped onto the large leather sofa, except for Greg, who was incapable of flopping. If the words ‘tense’ could be personified, it would be him. Every part of him was rigid – even his liquorice hair was clenched. So, while we all virtually lay on the sofa, he sat forwards in the armchair, poised to jump up and run out at a microsecond’s notice.
Jen eventually hoisted herself out of the sofa, left the room, then returned with a bottle of champagne, and four champagne flutes. She handed a glass to each of
us, then gave Matt the bottle to open.
‘So,’ Jen said, flopping down between Matt and me once our glasses were filled, ‘let’s make a toast.’ We raised our glasses. ‘To new beginnings for me and Matt . . . and to you two finding special someones too.’
‘Cheers,’ we all said and took a sip – except Greg who just held his glass up.
‘Yup, let’s hope you two meet special someones too,’ Matt said, with a sly peek at Greg that was so unsubtle their upstairs neighbour probably saw it.
‘All right, Matt, that’s it!’ Jen said. ‘Why, whenever I say something about either of those two meeting someone special, do you look at Greg? You were doing it on Monday, too.’
‘What?’ Matt replied.
My heart left my chest and lodged itself in my throat.
‘I’m not stupid, Matthew, I’ve noticed the looks you give Greg. Something’s going on. And I, no,’ Jen linked arms with me, ‘we want to know what it is.’
I know what it is, my tongue tried to say. I clamped my teeth together to stop it confessing everything.
Matt, meanwhile, had gone into rabbit-caught-in-headlights mode and stared at Greg. Greg, the only one unbothered by Jen’s demand, shrugged casually. ‘I’ve met someone.’
‘No!!’ Jen shrieked. ‘When? Where? How?’
‘Yes!!’ Greg shrieked back, mocking Jen by matching her tone. ‘About a week ago! Leeds! Through work!’
‘And . . .’ Jen hurried.
Greg shrugged. ‘It’s going well.’
Jen cuffed Matt around the ear. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’
‘He made me promise,’ Matt pleaded.
Jen’s face showed her displeasure at being left out of the loop. The urge to throw myself on her mercy surfaced again.
‘So, what’s she like?’ Jen asked.
Greg shrugged again. ‘Like a woman.’
‘Come on, Walterson! More. I want details. What’s she like?’