Charlotte Street (3 page)

A pause.

‘You’ve been on Wikipedia, haven’t you?’

I nodded.

‘
Is
there a King of France?’ asked Dev.

‘President, then, I can’t remember. All I know is it’s somewhere you go and have the time of your life. With a man called Gary, just before you have a pride of little Garys – all of whom will look like tiny thuggish babies – and then you buy a boat and make cheese in the country.’

‘What are you
talking
about?’ said Dev.

‘Sarah.’

‘Is she having tiny thuggish babies?’

‘Probably,’ I slurred. ‘Probably right now she’s just popped another one out. They’ll take over the world, her thuggish babies. They’ll spread and multiply, like in
Arachnophobia
. They’ll stick to people’s faces and pound them with their little fists.’

Dev considered my wise words.

‘You didn’t used to be like this,’ he said. ‘Where did you go? Who’s this grumpy man?’

‘It is me,’ I said. ‘I am Mr Grumpy. I called home last week and Mum was like, “You never come back to Durham, why do you never come home to Durham?”.’

‘So why do you never go back to Durham?’

‘Because it’s a reminder, isn’t it? Of going backwards. Anyway, Sarah doesn’t have that problem. She’s gonna have tiny thuggish babies.’

‘I don’t think she’ll have thuggish babies. I thought Gary was, like, an investment banker?’

‘Doesn’t mean he’s not gonna have thuggish babies,’ I said, pointing my finger in the air to show I would not accept any form of contradiction on this. ‘He’s
exactly
the type of man to have a thuggish baby. A little skinhead one. Who’s always shouting.’

‘But that’s just a
baby
,’ said Dev.

‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Just don’t feed one of them after midnight.’

There was a brief silence. An AC/DC track came on. My favourite. ‘Back In Black’ – the finest rock song of its time. I was momentarily cheered.

‘Let’s have another pint,’ I said. ‘A
Żubr
! Or a Zyborg!’

But Dev was looking at me, very seriously now.

‘You should delete her,’ he said, flatly. ‘Just delete her. Be done with it. Leave Mr Grumpy behind, because Mr Grumpy is in danger of becoming Mr Dick. I’m no expert, but I’m sure that’s what they’d say on
This Morning
, if you phoned up and asked one of those old women who solve problems.’

I nodded.

‘I know,’ I said, sadly.

‘These are 2000 calories!’ said Dev. ‘2000! I read about it in the paper!’

‘You read about it in
my
paper,’ I said. After several pints in the Den, we’d had the ‘one we came for’ and stopped at Oz’s for a kebab on the way home. ‘I’m the one who showed it to you and said, “Read this! It says kebabs are 2000 calories!”’

‘Wherever I read it, I’m just saying, 2000 calories is a lot of calories for a kebab. But they’re good for you, too.’

‘How are they
good
for you?’

‘They line your stomach with fat, so that when the apocalypse comes, you are better prepared. We’ll survive longer. Tubby people will inherit the earth!’

Dev made a little ‘yahoo!’ sound, but then started coughing on his chilli sauce. He’s a little obsessed with the apocalypse, through years of roaming post-apocalyptic landscapes, scavenging for objects and fighting giant beetles on videogames, which he genuinely regards as his ‘important training’.

Right now, he was having trouble getting the key into the door. You’d lose points for that in an apocalypse. You’d also lose points for wearing glasses, but they’re an important part of Dev. He has an IQ of around 146 according not just to a psychiatrist when he was four but also to some interactive quiz he did on the telly, which makes me proud of him when I’m drunk, though you’d never think it was anywhere
close
to 146 to speak to him. He has applied for four of the however-many-series of
The Apprentice
there’ve been, but for some reason they are yet to reply satisfactorily to this part-owner of a very minor second-hand videogame shop on the Caledonian Road, which I would find funny, if I didn’t know this actually broke his heart.

It’d be easy to argue that Dev was defined at fourteen. His interests, his way with girls, even his look. See, when Dev was fourteen, his grandfather died, and that had a huge impact on his life. Not because it was emotionally traumatic, though of course it was, but because Dev’s dad doesn’t like to see money
wasted. And the year before, Dev had started to notice he wasn’t like the other kids. Just small things – not being able to see a sign, not being able to read a clock, and persistently and with great flair falling out of his bed. He was short-sighted.

His dad is a businessman. His dad thought, why pay for frames, when a pair of frames were clearly so nearly ready and available for no money whatsoever?

And so Dev had been given his granddad’s frames. His
granddad’s
. Literally three days after the funeral. Re-lensed, obviously, but by his dad’s mate, on the Whitechapel Road, and with cheap, scuffable plastic. Dev went through the next four years ridiculed by all and sundry for having a young boy’s face and an old man’s pair of specs, like a toddler wearing his mum’s sunglasses. He tried to grow a moustache to compensate, but that just made him look like a miniature military dictator.

And he’d never bought a new pair. Why should he? He’d found his look. And these days, it was working to his advantage. At university, at least at first, it had been considered odd, these thick black frames on a weird new kid, but they were a comfort blanket in year one, an eccentricity or quirk in year two and, he hoped, a chick magnet in year three.

(They weren’t.)

But later, when you added them to the hair he couldn’t be bothered to get cut and the T-shirts he either got for free or bought from eBay for a pound and a penny, these glasses screamed confidence. These glasses screamed … well, they screamed ‘Dev’.

Foreign girls, who couldn’t understand him but liked bright jackets, thought he looked cool.

‘Come on!’ he said, finally through the door and slamming the banister with his fist as we stumbled upstairs. ‘I know what’ll cheer you up.’

In the flat, Dev threw his kebab onto the table and made for the kitchen, where he started to go through cupboards and loudly shift stuff about.

I wandered into my bedroom and picked up my laptop and made a determined face.

Maybe I
should
do it, I thought. Just delete her. Move on. Forget about things. Be the grown-up. It’d be easy. And then I could turn on my computer without that low, dull ache. That anticipation of maybe seeing something bad. I could get on with my life.

I heard Dev shout, ‘Aha!’, as I fired up the Internet.

‘Found it, Jase! Prime bottle of
Jezynowka
! Blackberry brandy! How’s about we hook up the N64 and drink
Jezynowka
and play
GoldenEye
‘til dawn?’

But I wasn’t listening. Not really. I was only guessing at what he was saying. He could have been knocking over vases and composing racist songs for all I knew, because I was transfixed, and shocked, and I don’t know what else, by what I saw on the screen.

One word this time.

One word that kicked me in the teeth and stamped on my hope and made fun of my family.

‘Jase?’ said Dev, suddenly there, in my doorway. ‘D’you want to be James Bond or Natalia?’

But I didn’t look round.

My eyes were pricked with tears and I could feel every hair on my body, because all I could see were the words ‘Sarah Bennett is …’ and then that last one, that killer, that complete and absolute
bastard
of a word.

Engaged.

That was the word, since you ask.

Engaged.

Sarah was engaged to Gary. Gary was engaged to Sarah. Sarah and Gary were engaged to
one another
.

I didn’t stay up ‘til dawn playing
GoldenEye
with Dev after that. I just sat there, numbed by shock and
Jezynowka
, in a cold room that now reeked of blackberry, and clicked refresh and refresh and refresh as the congratulations poured in.

Hurray!
wrote Steve, which is
typical
of Steve, and
Yahoo!
wrote Jess, which is
just
like her, and
About time!
wrote Anna.

Really, Anna? About time, is it? They’ve been together
six months
, Anna. I was with Sarah for
four years
. But you never thought
we
should get married, did you? What was it about me you didn’t like? Was it my clothes? Was it my job? Was it that time I spilled red wine all over your table and some of it got on your shoes and you called me a twat and then I was sick?

Yes, it was probably that.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer couple!
wrote Ben, and that one really hurt, because Ben was
my
friend, Sarah, not yours. You got custody, of course – you ended up with all of them – but
only because I was too ashamed and scared to look any of them in the eye any more.

I swigged the brandy from the bottle and read on, each yelp of excitement and each congratulatory pronouncement and each
OH MY GOD
and extra, unnecessary exclamation mark a jab in the heart and a poke in the eye.

What about me? I wanted to shout. Is no one thinking of me? How come when Sarah writes that she’s engaged you all go mental, but when
I
eat some
soup
suddenly no one’s got
anything
to say?

I knew then I had to delete her. Make a statement. Let her know this was not good,
not
okay.

But doing it now would look churlish, childish, immature.

And besides, then I wouldn’t be able to look at her photos.

Oh, Christ. There it is. The ring.

He must’ve proposed right there, at that table, after a couple of cocktails on a sleeveless Andorran night with a bad Margherita.

Margherita! Not even a Meat Feast! What, I suppose you guys are doing healthy eating now, are you? Going to Pilates classes and drinking vitamin-enhanced smoothies? Yeah, I bet you are.

I wouldn’t have proposed like that, Gary. I’d have made it
special
. I’d have hidden the ring in a champagne flute, or – you know – abseiled out of a hot air balloon and into a football stadium, and proposed right there and then, down on bended knee and broadcast on a big screen for all to see. Because I’ve got class, Gary. And yes, Gary, I
was
going to propose to her, actually. I didn’t, but I was going to. One day. I had it all planned. Or, not planned exactly, but I’d
planned
to make plans. Plans were very much part of my plan. And even though I never did, and even though I now never can, let me tell you
this with no reservations whatsoever, Gary: my plans would
not
have involved a boring pizza and a bright blue cocktail.

Oh, God. She looks so happy.

I swigged at my blackberry brandy and made a V-sign at the screen.

And then I got up and rattled about in the kitchen and found another bottle.

It was far too early and I tasted of blackberries.

But something was buzzing near my face, and it wouldn’t stop.

I forced my eyes open and found the phone, looked at it.

It took a moment to register the name. Or not the name. But
why
the name.

SARAH.

What time was it? Seven? Eight?

I couldn’t. Not now. I’m not prepared. I needed coffee, and maybe a series of notes and things to say that would make me seem diffident and unaffected. I pressed divert and stared at the ceiling. That’d send her a message, I thought. Let her know she can’t rely on me to just answer whenever she …

It was buzzing again. I held it up.

Maybe something’s happened. Maybe Gary’s dumped her. Maybe I should be there for her at this time of need. Show her how sensitive and brilliant I can be.

ACCEPT.

‘Hello?’

Wow, my voice was low.

‘Jase?’

‘Hey.’

And
croaky
. Low and croaky.

‘How are you?’

‘Fine.’

She didn’t sound upset. She sounded cold. Stern. She sounded like Sarah.

I realised she probably didn’t know I knew.

Okay, I decided. Just tell me you’re engaged.

‘Rough night?’ she said.

Yes, as it happens, Sarah, a very rough night indeed. Now how about you tell me you’re engaged and I can act surprised and mature.

‘Just a … I just had a couple of drinks with Dev, and—’

‘Why are you such a dick, Jase?’

I frowned. That wasn’t in the script. And anyway, it’s
Mr
Dick to you.

A second passed.

‘I’m … what do you …’

‘You could at least be happy for me, Jason. You can’t blame me for any of this. We both made choices, and …’ Not this.

Not this conversation again.

‘Happy about what?’ I said, innocently.

‘You
know
what.’

How did she know I knew what? What?

‘Sarah—’

‘I’m engaged, Jason. Are you happy now I’ve said it like that?’

‘I … well, that’s good news!’ I said. ‘
Good
for you.’

‘That’s not what you said last night.’

I blinked a couple of times. Had I called her? Had she called me? I glanced over at the table in the corner. A streak of blackberry brandy had made its way down one leg, and there, next to it, the messenger: my laptop, my betrayer, still on, still proudly displaying a bright and colourful photo of a very happy Sarah.

‘Last night,’ she said, ‘you seemed to think it was a bad move.’

‘No, I’d never.’

‘You said it was a bad move and that all my friends were bad friends for not stopping me making the greatest mistake any woman has ever made in sacrificing any chance of getting back together with you for a life of Margherita pizzas and stupid days.’

‘Stupid
days
?’

‘Gary’s very upset. He’s very sensitive. He feels you’ve humiliated him. You said he was the Margherita of Men. You said you were like a Meat Feast and he was like a Margherita.’