The Accidental Proposal (26 page)

I stare at him for a few seconds before realizing he’s waiting for an answer.

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing. ’As right. And besides,’ he says, ‘I owe you.’

‘What for?’

‘Everything. Yukon. My career.’

I’m starting to wonder just how drunk he is. Forgetting the fact that his career seems to be in the toilet at the moment, normally Dan’s ego doesn’t allow him to attribute any of his success to anything apart from his talent and his looks. And not necessarily in that order.

‘No you don’t, Dan.’

‘Yes I do,’ he insists, rather loudly. ‘If you hadn’t taken me to that party and introduced me to that producer . . .’

This is true, in a way. Although by ‘introduced me to’, Dan really means ‘got drunk and spilled your drink down her top, which gave me the perfect opportunity to chat her up’.

‘Okay, then. Yes you do.’

Dan removes his arm from my shoulders and swivels round to face me. ‘So you admit it? Seymour fault that Polly and I split up.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘So you should be.’

‘No, Dan. I’m not actually sorry. I mean, how can that possibly be my fault?’

He jabs a finger into my chest. ‘Because I never would have split up with her if it hadn’t been for this TV career of mine.’

‘Which you owe all to me?’

‘Exactly.’

For a moment, I’m sure he’s joking, but then I remember one thing about Dan getting drunk, and it’s that he usually gets all morose. Normally, I’d let it pass – his logic is hard enough to follow at the best of times, let alone when it’s been affected by the best part of a crate of lager – but even given the amount I’ve had to drink I can see where this is going.

‘But that’s like me saying that if it wasn’t for you not telling me I was getting fat, I never would have lost Jane.’

‘Smartly,’ says Dan. ‘And be loved-up with Sam. For which you owe me big time.’

‘You’re right,’ I say, as sarcastically as I can manage. ‘It
is
all my fault. So what can I do to put it right?’

Dan peers intently at me, as if he’s willing his eyes to focus, then slaps himself on the cheek. Twice.

‘Help me get her back, of course.’

‘What? But I thought you said—’

‘Never mind what I said,’ he says, suddenly lucid. ‘I’ve come to realize, watching you go through all this wedding bollocks, that this is what I want too. To settle down. To be with someone I love, and who loves me. And not just for this,’ he adds, pointing both index fingers at his face.

‘Blimey. You must be drunk.’

‘Maybe,’ says Dan. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m not serious. So will you help me or not?’

‘Of course I will. But what are you going to do?’

‘What you did with Jane. Except I’ve already done it.’

‘Huh?’

‘Jane said you were fat, so you lost weight. Polly didn’t like what my TV career stood for – now I don’t have one. Violas!’

‘Voilà, Dan.’

‘Whatever.’ He taps the side of his nose with his index finger. ‘So I’m going to make her an offer she can’t refuse.’

I laugh. ‘There’s a “head in her bed” joke in there somewhere.’

Dan smiles at my reference to
The Godfather
. It’s one of his favourite films. Mind you, so is
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
; though not the Disney version, but one set in a house full of Swedish women.

I hold my glass up. ‘Well, here’s to you and Polly.’

‘To me and Polly,’ says Dan, raising his bottle towards me. ‘And remember. This is supposed to be a stag night.’

‘So?’

‘So get that down you in one, you big girl’s blouse. Assuming . . .’

‘Assuming what?’

‘That you’ve got the stomach for it,’ says Dan, before collapsing in a fit of giggles.

I smile politely back at him, lift my glass to my lips, and swallow the strange-tasting concoction as instructed, then . . . Well, that’s the last thing I remember.

Unfortunately.

8.31 a.m.

When I wake up, or rather, when I’m woken up by the sound of the bedroom door shutting – Sam doing her best to leave quietly for work again, I imagine – it takes me a few seconds to pluck up the courage to open my eyes. The room’s pitch-black, which is a relief as my head is throbbing, but as I reach down to pull the covers back over me with the intention of trying to sleep off as much of this hangover as I can, it’s not my duvet I feel, but some unfamiliar sheet-and-blanket combination.

I sit up with a start, which makes my head hurt even more, and fumble for the light switch next to the headboard, but when I can’t find it, have to haul myself out of bed and feel my way along the wall until I reach what feels like a pair of curtains, which I throw open, blinking in the sudden glare. And while I’m initially concerned that I don’t know where I am, what’s even more worrying than the unfamiliar surroundings is the imprint in the other pillow. Because if this isn’t my bedroom, then that sure as hell wasn’t made by Sam. Plus, as my watch tells me, when I eventually manage to focus on it, it’s Sunday. Sam doesn’t work on Sundays.

I look anxiously around the room for clues, almost having a heart attack when I spot what appears to be a dead body slumped in the armchair in the corner, only to realize it’s last night’s discarded fat suit. Given the horrible carpet and the strange curtains hanging over the window, I’m probably in a hotel room – albeit a spinning one – but it’s not until I catch sight of the ‘Grand Hotel’ stationery on the desk next to the door I remember Dan and I were due to stay here last night.

I lower myself gingerly onto the bed and get back under the covers, hoping,
praying
, that my mystery bedfellow was Dan, having bunked up with me because he’d forgotten his key or, more likely, his room number. Because as horrible as that would have been, it’s way preferable to the alternative, which is that I’ve spent the night with a woman. After all, someone must have helped me out of the fat suit. I only hope they stopped there.

I take some comfort in the fact that I’m still wearing my boxer shorts, but as I think about it, I’m not sure what that proves. I could have put them on after the event, I suppose. Assuming there
was
an event.

There’s a glass of water on the bedside table, which I pick up, gulping the contents down thirstily, only to discover as they slide jaggedly down my throat that my contact lenses are in there. As the adrenalin buzz fades and my hangover kicks back in with a vengeance, there’s a gentle knocking on the door, so I swivel round and place my feet carefully on the floor, still not a hundred per cent sure which direction is up, and make my way unsteadily to answer it.

‘God, you look rough,’ says a ridiculously chirpy Dan.

‘Please tell me you’ve just been down for breakfast and you’re coming back in?’

‘What?’ Dan shudders, then pushes in past me and sits on the edge of the bed. ‘Why would I be doing that when I’ve got, er . . . Well, her name’s not that important. But she’s sleeping it off in my room. Across the hall.’

‘Sleeping what off?’

Dan grins. ‘Me.’

‘Where on earth did you meet her? At the club?’

‘Nope. Back here. I was flicking through the room-service brochure and there was a number to call if you wanted someone to turn down your bed. Well, I can’t remember the last time that happened to me, so I kind of took it as a challenge . . .’ He grins again. ‘Anyway, what happened to you last night? I was off having a dance with some tall chick, and next thing I knew, you’d gone.’

‘And you didn’t think to come and look for me?’

‘No. I mean, what trouble could you have got into wearing that?’ he says, walking over to the chair and giving the fat suit a poke, as if to check it’s dead. ‘It’s like walking around wearing bubble wrap and I knew you wouldn’t be able to get it off.’

‘How did I
, then?’

‘Pardon?’

‘How did I get it off?’

Dan stares at the discarded layer of latex, then back at me. ‘You crafty old . . .’

‘Dan, this isn’t something to be proud of. I’m getting married in a week, and I’ve only gone and slept with someone else.’ I collapse backwards on the bed and fold my arms over my eyes. ‘It’s a disaster.’

‘Hold your horses,’ says Dan. ‘How do you know you slept with anyone?’

‘Hello?’ I say, nodding towards the fat suit, then jabbing a thumb towards the imprint in the pillow next to mine. ‘And I even heard her leave.’

Dan walks over and examines the pillow. ‘That’s shocking,’ he says. ‘And without so much as a thank you.’

I lift my head up and look at him in disbelief, wondering whether he knows that’s his normal behaviour. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘How do you know you had sex with her? Assuming it
was
a her.’

‘Very funny, Dan,’ I say, dismissing this immediately. While I can’t remember anything about last night, surely I’d remember, well,
that
.

‘Okay. Let’s assume it
was
a girl. Have you checked for physical signs?’

‘Huh?’

‘You know,
marks
. And I don’t mean out of ten carved into the headboard.’

I stand up tentatively. ‘What sort of marks?’ I say, pulling the elastic out at the front of my boxer shorts and peering down at my groin.

‘Not there, dummy. Scratches on your back, for example. Or on your front.’

‘On my front?’

Dan nods. ‘Yup. She might have been trying to push you off.’

I march over to the mirror above the desk in the corner to inspect my torso. So far so good – there are no love-bites, or scratches on my front. But when I spin around to inspect my back, I almost fall over in shock: Written right across my shoulder blades – and in big blue letters – are what look like the number ‘3’, followed by a backward ‘N’, then the letters ‘A’ and ‘L’, which, when my addled brain manages to work out the mirror image, seems to say ‘Jane’. I can’t believe it. A week to go till my wedding, and I’ve gone and got a tattoo of my ex-girlfriend
’s name across my back.

‘Dan . . . what have you done?’ I say, falling into the nearby chair in shock, my legs unable to keep me upright. But instead of at least trying to be sympathetic, Dan just bursts out laughing. Very loudly.

I glare up at him as he leans against the wall, gasping for breath. ‘You bastard! How could you let me do this? You were supposed to look after me.’

‘I’m sorry, Ed,’ he gasps. ‘Your face . . .’

‘My face is the least of my worries,’ I say, fighting a sudden urge to punch him in his. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Well,’ says Dan, eventually regaining his composure, ‘you could try a bit of soap and water for a start.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a joke tattoo. Have you noticed how it doesn’t hurt?’

‘Given the amount I evidently drank last night, everything hurts.’

I get up slowly from the chair and back gingerly towards the mirror. Sure enough, when I lick my finger and reach round under my armpit to rub the edge of the ‘J’, it starts to come off.

‘“I just need to mark the position of the straps,”’ says Dan, in a funny voice, before bursting out laughing again. ‘Sucker.’

I suppose I might find this funny under different circumstances. But the way I’m feeling at the moment, even a real tattoo of my ex-girlfriend’s name would be easier to deal with than what I suspect might have happened.

‘Dan, please. Be serious for a moment. This is important.’

He walks over to the bathroom door and pushes it open. ‘Chill, Ed. Innocent till proven guilty, remember? Now, how about you wake yourself up with a shower, and I’ll
meet you down at breakfast. See if we can’t work out what really happened.’

8.45 a.m.

I race through the shower – although taking extra care to scrub all traces of Jane’s name off my back with one of the hotel’s towels – grateful that at least Dan didn’t use permanent marker, then pull on last night’s clothes, which look somewhat ridiculous now I’m not wearing the fat suit, and head downstairs to breakfast. Dan’s nabbed us a table by the window, so I head across the room to join him, moving my chair round to face the room, as the brightness coming from outside is still a little painful.

‘So,’ I say, once I’ve downed three double espressos, and force-fed Dan a triple-chocolate muffin in the hope that the sugar will kick-start his memory. ‘Can you remember anything? Anything at all?’

He swallows a mouthful of coffee, then scrunches his face up in what looks like concentration, although it could be because he’s accidentally shaken some salt into his cup. ‘Well,’ he says, leaning back and folding his arms behind his head, ‘we were at the club. And you were absolutely off your head.’

‘Thanks to that cocktail you bought me.’

‘Bought you?’

‘Yes, you know. You handed me that pint glass and made me down it in one.’ I suddenly feel queasy at the memory. ‘What was it called? A Minesweeper, or something.’