Chapter 1
… Three months later
‘Can I suck you?’ A balding man shouted from just in front of the stage.
Suck this, I wanted to tell him, smiling instead through the last lines of the song. It was official: my musical aspirations were a joke. Heckle-worthy. I’d have checked my watch to see how much more humiliation my two hundred quid fee would buy the audience, but it was trapped beneath the red Lycra.
My heart had shuddered when the organiser asked me to front the band at their company conference. Corporate gigs were crosses to be borne by freshies, not seasoned veterans. But then she mentioned that it was a ‘theme’ party (vampires) and that I might need to dress for the part. A step backwards maybe, but I could so do vampire. Sexy black dress, red shoes and lipstick. Perhaps a single crimson droplet to suggest I’d been a bit naughty.
I looked naughty, all right. I had a metre of red spongy cloth between my legs, as if I’d had an enormous bowel movement in a very large, ill-fitting nappy. I was meant to be a drop of blood. I looked like a bloody pear. That didn’t mean, bloody hell, I looked like a pear. It meant I looked like a piece of fruit that was bleeding to death.
The only saving grace was that most of the crowd was too drunk to focus beyond their drinks. I’d be nothing but a fuzzy memory by morning. ‘Thank you very much. We’ll take a break now, and be back in about half an hour.’ I waddled off the stage.
I did once have a singing career of sorts, back in Chicago. What big plans I had, in a city where music venues were more common than honest politicians (by a wide margin). Hundreds of hopefuls plied their trade to live audiences every week. In that atmosphere, it was no wonder we all thought we could be singing legends. And the fact that my mum actually was a bit of a singing legend just fanned my creative fire. I even had a manager to book my gigs. I sang as often as my day job allowed, and my day job kept me from living in my parents’ spare room. Not that they’d have minded. They knew what it was like trying to make it in music.
My foot must have slipped off the gas pedal when I came to London. I told myself it was the move, though after a decade, that was a bit like blaming the baby weight on your nine-year-old.
The band I was fronting was as delighted by our gig as I was. The bassist used every break to argue into his phone with increasing agitation. The pianist too, was hissing down the phone at her husband, telling him what a lazy so-and-so he was, as the clarinet/sax player stared morosely into his umpteenth whisky of the night. We were totally rock and roll.
My phone bzzzzd with a text from within the costume’s depths.
Hope your night is going well. Sending you good vibes. xx
I smiled before I could stop myself. Mattias. That man was ten times more attentive now than he’d ever been when we were together. Funny how a break-up sharpens a man’s game.
‘Ready?’ The piano player asked a little while later as a rowdy group of face-painted businessmen pounded shots beside us. ‘We may as well play some more. It beats sitting here.’
‘Maybe music will soothe the savage beast.’
She looked around. ‘Not these beasts.’
Mattias called just as I emerged from the Tube near my flat. Juggling my overstuffed bag, my phone, my gloves and my broken umbrella against the blustery wet January night didn’t lighten my mood.
‘Hello, darling,’ he said, his smile buoying his voice. ‘How was the gig?’
‘Mattias, please, I’ve asked you not to call me that. The gig was exactly like every other corporate gig I’ve done. I don’t know why I keep putting myself through this.’ At least I didn’t have to wear the costume home.
‘You do it because you want to be successful. You’ll get there. It just takes time.’
‘How much time? Jesus, it’s been almost twenty years. When does it get to be my turn? I’m sorry, ignore me. I’m just tired. How are you?’
‘Better for hearing you. I’m actually a bit tired myself. Can I call you tomorrow?’
‘It’s fine, you don’t need to call back.’
‘It’s just that I’m tired, B.’
‘I meant– Okay, call if you like.’
I opened the front door to find Frederick sitting in his favourite chair, rhythmically flashing his boxer-covered bollocks at me. His devotion to his thigh-master was admirable, if bewildering. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon,’ he said.
‘It’s midnight. And please, must you do that in the living room?’ My flatmate was inappropriate in public. He could be positively feral at home.
‘Sorry, sweetheart, must keep fit. My lovers expect coconut-cracking thighs. Here, feel.’
‘No, thanks. Why don’t you run or lift weights or something like a regular man? You know that only girls ever use the thigh machine in the gym, right?’
‘Untrue. All the men in my gym use it.’
‘Your gym is gay, Frederick.’
‘Don’t remind me. If only I’d known that when I joined.’ He rolled his eyes like he couldn’t believe his silly old bad luck. His gym was called Paris. As in Gay Payree. ‘Anyway, why back so early, love? I thought the gig would go late into the night.’
‘Luckily not. I’m exhausted.’ I flopped on the sofa. ‘I don’t know how much more humiliation I can take.’
‘It couldn’t have been that bad.’
I showed him the photo one of the band members took with my phone.
‘Eesh. You look like an apple.’
‘Thank you very much.’
‘Was the crowd nice at least? Any studs?’
‘Did you say duds?’
‘You know, B., that acerbic tongue will do you no favours in the romance stakes. A man wants a soft girl, not one dripping with acid.’
‘Am I really taking dating advice from you? And I’m not dripping with anything.’
‘You may feast at the master’s table. And maybe that’s your problem. No dripping. How long has it been?’
‘None of your business.’ Six months and two days, or exactly since Mattias’ and my ten-year anniversary. Given that that was almost three months before we broke up, perhaps alarm bells should have rung a bit sooner.
‘I thought so. Speaking of the noble Swede, he called earlier. He wants you to call him.’
‘Thanks.’
‘But you won’t, right? We agreed. It’s not healthy.’
‘I know we did, but he’s really having a hard time. There’s nothing going on between us. We just talk.’
‘And that’s not healthy! You’ve broken up. You’re not even getting sex out of the deal. You need to move on. At this rate, I fear for you. In fact, just to show how much I care, I’d be willing to help. You say the word, kitten, and I’ll end your dry spell.’
‘That’s very kind of you, thanks, but I’m not really your type. What with no penis and all.’
‘I do wish you’d stop with that. I’m as straight as George Bush.’
‘Okay, I believe you.’ He was more like George Michael.
My remarks might have sounded harsh (or homophobic), but actually Frederick and I got on quite well. In fact, this was me tempering my disbelief that he had any interest in a vagina. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff he came out with. He once walked gingerly into the flat because he’d been waxed – back, sack and crack. He became gayer by the day. I just wished he’d be himself instead of delivering Clint Eastwood’s lines in high camp.
It was easy to forget that ours was only a months-long friendship. Though thrown together in the great London housing lottery, we were shaping up to be lifetime friends. He was a godsend when I had to find a flat, a real homo with a heart of gold, my fairy godmother.
After I’d had ‘the talk’ with Mattias, our flat developed a bit of an undertone. Oh, we stayed civil in the weeks it took to finally realise that the patient couldn’t be resuscitated. We even planned dates, something we hadn’t done in a long time. But the fear that the condition was terminal gave those evenings an air of desperation. We tried too hard to be jolly, wanting to believe we’d found a cure. It was no use. We couldn’t resurrect feelings that were never there in the first place. Forcing ourselves to try only widened the chasm between what we felt and what we wanted to feel. Even so, I was completely sick to my stomach when we finally agreed it would be most humane to stop life support. It became real then, when I had to contemplate change-of-address cards.
Of course I didn’t think that quitting a decade-long relationship would simply mean moving into the second bedroom, splitting the bills and the occasional pizza. By the time we were finished we’d rubbed our conversation raw. It was painful to the touch and I knew I’d have to leave. But I knew it like one knows one’s body will eventually get old. It’s only a theoretical inevitability until the first incontinent sneeze. Then it hits home.
I was in a bit of a daze when I met Fred to see his flat. As I trailed after him through the rooms, he recited the usual litany of rental requirements. They were the things you didn’t worry about when living with your boyfriend, like sharing fridge shelves and dedicated cupboards, telephone tallies and scheduled morning bathroom time. I was about to relearn how to be a flatmate.
When he asked me what my situation was I burst into tears. I could have made Mattias move out, but as the instigator of our break up, it seemed unfair to make him homeless as well. Instead I took the high road, and crashed head-on into the barrier when the reality of what I’d done bubbled up as I hyperventilated my ‘situation’. A wild-eyed woman in a trouser suit, I must have scared the hell out of poor Fred. But instead of shuffling me towards the door he strode over, said, ‘You did the right thing, girlfriend’ and squeezed me till I could breathe again. I moved in at the weekend.
Over the next few weeks I began the painful process of letting all our friends know that we’d pulled the plug. They weren’t initially as unquestioningly supportive as Frederick. Especially Kat. As my steadfastly married friend, she just couldn’t accept that I’d throw away a steady relationship for… what? Well, I guess that was the question. It was one I wasn’t looking forward to answering, again, at lunch on Saturday.