‘Wine?’
‘Yeah, of course wine; I wasn’t feeding the girl whisky.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I’d got up to uncork another-’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yes; I was still being polite and supportive. Fuck off with the suspicion and innuendo, will you?’
‘Sorry, sorry.’
‘Just wrapped herself around me. I turned round – surprised, you know – and she slapped her mouth over mine and grabbed my balls.’
‘Fucking hell.’ I looked up at the clouds, then back at Craig. ‘You did the decent thing, though.’
‘No, Kenneth,’ he said, stretching his long legs out. He was wearing grey trackie bottoms under a jacket last fashionable ten years ago. ‘The decent thing would have been to have shown her how wonderful the act of love can be when you do it with a real man, but I didn’t do that.’
‘Bet you snogged her for a while, you bastard. She was a good kisser.’
Craig considered this. ‘Hmm. I’d been putting that down to shock, but you’re right.’
‘You didn’t fuck her, did you?’
‘No. I did the self-sacrificing, You’re beautiful and I’m flattered but if we do we’ll both regret it in the morning thing. God help us, we even agreed it wouldn’t be right to betray you; it was worth depriving ourselves of some pleasure for your sake.’
‘Oh, fuck.’
‘Now what?’
‘Just had a terrible thought.’
‘What? Who are you calling?’
‘She went looking for me at Ed’s once.’
‘Wuh-oh.’
‘Yeah.’
Craig made as if to get up off the bench. ‘Want me to…?’
‘Na; if you’re going to see me humiliated we might as well get it over with now.’
‘You fucked her, didn’t you?’
‘No, I didn’t!’
‘Look, Ed, she told me she’d gone to yours, once. She went to Craig’s once, too, and she threw herself at him.’ (‘Hey!’ said Craig. ‘I resent the implication.’ I ignored him.) ‘You trying to tell me Jo didn’t try it on with you?’
‘Ah…’
‘Ah? Ah? Is that what you’re fucking giving me? Fucking “Ah”?’
‘Well…’
‘You did fuck her! You shite!’
‘She fuckin jumped me, man! It was practically rape!’
‘Fuck off, Ed.’
‘An anyway, she said she’d never done it wif a black guy; wot was I supposed to do? Deprive her?’
‘Don’t bring race into it, for fuck’s sake! And don’t give me this big black stud bullshit either!’
‘I didn’t bring race into it, man, she did!’
‘Aw, Ed, fuck off; how could you?’
‘I couldn’t help it, man.’
‘Well, fucking try learning, you overgrown adolescent!’
‘Look, man, I am sorry; I felt terrible the next day an it never appened again.’
‘Yeah, you’d had your fun, fucked your friend’s girl and added another notch to your fucking ceiling mirrors; why bother?’
‘Ken, listen; if I could go back in time an make it that it nevvir appened, believe me I would. I nevvir told you because I didn’t want to hurt you or do anyfin against you an Jo. I wish it just adn’t appened, I truly do. But it did, an I’m sorry, man. I really am sorry. I’m asking you to forgive me, right?’
‘Well – just – I’m not -’ I spluttered. ‘Just let me fucking be angry at you a bit longer!’ I said. ‘You bastard!’ I added, rather ineffectually.
‘Sorry, man.’
And I thought, Yeah. We’re all sorry. Everybody is so fucking sorry. It should be the fucking species’ middle name; Homo S. Sapiens. Maybe we could change it by misdeed poll.
‘… Listen,’ Ed said.
Something cold seemed to land in my guts. Oh, good grief. A ‘listen’ from Ed; now what?
‘What?’ I said.
‘You got this telly fing tomorrow, aven’t you?’
Oh fuck, he’d heard about Robe after all and worked out that I might want a gun to take into the studio. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Best of luck wif it, all right? Hope it goes well. You give this Nazi geezer wot-for, yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘You can go back to bein mad at me now if you want, or you can wait till we meet up next weekend an shout at me then. If we’re still meetin up. We still meetin up?’
‘I suppose.’
‘I’m sorry, man.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Still bruvvers?’
‘Yeah, I suppose so. Still bruvvaz.’
Craig invited me to supper. I suspected it was a sympathy thing; Nikki was staying and Emma was coming round and I think what they really wanted was a quiet evening meal with just the three of them.
What I really wanted was to see Nikki again, just to be sure that we were okay, and that nothing had changed, at least not for the worse, after the New Year party, because that kiss – those two kisses – had left me worried. I’d let her kiss me, and I’d kissed her back, and the more I’d thought about this over the intervening period, the more ashamed I’d become, and I felt a terrible urge to tell her that it had changed nothing, and of course it would never happen again, and that I was sorry, too, for the time in the Land Rover in the rain, on the day of the crash, when I’d tried – in what now felt like a deeply sad and desperate way – to persuade her to have lunch with me, and that I’d always, always be a good friend and a good uncle for her, for the rest of her life… Though at the same time I also wanted not to have to say anything at all, and to have everything be just the same as it had always been between us, with no awkwardness or distance.
The trouble was that Emma would be there, too, and if Craig mentioned what had happened with Jo – I’d asked him not to say anything to Nikki or Emma, and especially not to mention Jo and Ed, but still – then it might get awkward, given the history I had with Emma. It was a very slim sliver of history, I kept on telling myself, but it was no less potentially lethal for my relationship with Craig for that.
I was in danger of losing one girlfriend, two best friends and – tomorrow – maybe my job, and liberty, all in one insane forty-eight-hour period.
Screw the nut, I thought. Batten down. Supper would have been nice, and I had such a bad hangover I’d probably not want to drink very much and so it would actually constitute quite a sensible, measured preparation for the big day tomorrow, but I decided to say no. Other plans.
‘Ken, hi.’
‘Amy, kid; how are you?’
‘Brilliant. You?’
‘Ah… kinda, you know.’
‘Darling, no, I don’t. What? Is there a problem?’
‘Jo and I are… over.’
‘Oh! I’m sorry to hear that. You seemed so close.’
‘Well,’ I said. Did we? I thought. I wouldn’t have said so, but then maybe that was just the sort of thing you said when somebody told you something like this. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s… it’s, ah, very finished with. Kind of saw it coming, but… hit me a little harder than I’d expected, must confess.’
‘Gosh. You poor thing.’
‘Yeah. Nearly two years.’
‘Really.’
‘Yeah. Feels like longer.’
‘Right.’
‘Felt quite a lot for her, I have to say.’
‘Well, of course.’
‘… All gone now.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘… Anyway.’
‘Hmm. Are you going to be all right?’
‘Amy… I’ll live.’
‘Oh, dear; you sound so sad!’
‘Ah, I’ll get over it. One day.’
‘Oh! Is there anything I can do?’
‘Well, I suppose…You could let me take you out to dinner. Tonight, even. How does that sound?’
‘That sounds like a totally bloody marvellous idea, Ken. I was at a bit of a loose end myself, actually.’
I looked at the mobile, thinking, Well, you might have got on-message a bit earlier there, woman.
‘Amy, for goodness’ sake. There are two lies here: one is that private management is automatically better than public-’
‘But it is! Have you ever dealt with a local authority, Ken? Those useless bloody people wouldn’t last two minutes in the real world!’