Bitter Sweet

Dramatis personae:

  Tom: That's me. You know me.

  Luke: I've already mentioned him too. He's my mate.

  Ed: Ed's a cracking bloke. I've only known him a year or so but he's reliable, thoroughly blokeish in an old-fashioned sort of way, and has always struck me as the type of man that would be an officer in the army in times of war. In fact I often think that he was born in the wrong era and would have been far better suited to being born several decades previously so he could have served gallantly in some British armed conflict abroad, only to return to Blighty and then find it hard to revert to civilian life.

  Sonny might pop in later but I'll tell you about him if he does show up. Sonny's a bit of a weird one to explain.

  So I'm going to step back from the narrative a little now and I'll try not to intrude too much on proceedings and just let the talking do the, erm, talking. All you need to know is that we've just taken off our coats, it's dusk outside and we all three of us have a pint sitting on the table.

  Me: That is fantastic. There's not a lot better than the first pint of the night.

  Ed: Fourth is nice. Fourth is getting nice and unwound and starting to talk a bit louder, crack jokes and laugh a bit more.

  Me: Up to about seven where the volume gets all Spinal Tap but the gags get all a bit... first series of Blackadder.

  Luke: What would be nice here, is if the pair of you would shut the fuck up and let us all get to the point.

  Me: No conversational flirting then?

  Ed: Man has a point. Take the floor Tom. Give us the filth. Please tell me you did it Homer Simpson style.

  Luke: Elaborate please?

  Ed: Simpsons episode. Homer giving advice on letting someone down gently; "Dear Baby, welcome to dumpsville, population: you."

  Luke: Ha ha! Genius!! Awful Homer impression though. Lose it.

  Me: I knew there was a better way of doing it. Where were you when I needed you Ed?

  I give them a brief description of events as they happened and the boys listen politely and interject occasionally to remark on her behaviour, my admirable conduct in actually looking her in the eye to explain things rather than dumping her via email, text or a complete communications blackout. This last is Ed's suggestion.

  Me: Much as I appreciate your combination of ingenuity and rank cowardice Ed, a total communications blackout is probably more a wartime strategy than a means of ending a difficult relationship.

  Ed: Nonsense. Any man worth his salt has binned a bird by simply stopping calling her.

  Luke: This is correct and any attempts at denial by you (he points sternly at me) will be met with an instant Sambuca Penalty.

  Me: No denial at all gents but it's more of a get out to be used up to and including a five date situation. Once you're a proper item you have to at least tell her she's binned. A year makes the actual sit down and explain pretty much mandatory.

  Ed: A well-constructed argument. What does the Book of Luke have to say about this?

  Luke: It's very much down to the conscience of the individual in question. Tom's five date rule sounds admirable in theory but it's a little arbitrary and it overlooks any number of variables. One might discover that the lady in question is in fact only interesting sexually, and intellectually quite the opposite. In such a circumstance, the novelty not only wears off, it is positively scrubbed away. Or the lady might be caught getting humped silly by the Gas man when the chap drops in unannounced one evening.

  Ed: That certainly warrants a cessation of contact.

  Me: I think any extra-curricular humping is an automatic red card though. I mean that counts anywhere between date one and til death us do part.

  Ed: Are we digressing?

  Luke: Yes.

  Ed: Are we pissed?

  Me: No.

  Ed: Fine then let's focus. I'll get the drinks and bar snacks, you gather your thoughts on what Mel's going to do next. Whodini or Wournos?

  I reflect momentarily on Ed's rather crude dichotomy of female behaviour. Ed has an excuse to be fair since his experience of ex-girlfriends involves either one of two responses: they either disappear from his life without a trace allowing wounds to heal and life to be got on with, or they go stark raving mental love crazed obsessive. He is insistent that this phenomenon replicates itself with all other men. I'm not convinced he's right to be honest with you but I can see - have in fact - the point of his argument.

  Luke: Ed! (Ed looks back from the bar), No pork scratchings.

  Me: Problem?

  Luke: He keeps buying them. They're rancid things. Sweepings off the abattoir floor I tell ya. Straight into the deep fat fryer, bit of salt, bag.

  Me: You'd eat the crackling off a bit of roast pork though right?

  Luke: Different. I can see the pork joint go into and come out of the oven. It's not the pigskin itself I object to, it's the entirely suspicious circumstances of how they get from animal to bag. It's all wrong and you know it.

  Ed: Beef, Salt and Vinegar, Sweet Chilli. No pickled eggs I'm afraid.

  Me: Excellent, then I shan't have to vomit on you.

  Luke: Steady on Tommo, they're a delicacy.

  Ed: He's not wrong Tom, and you can drop those eyebrows back off your forehead too.

  Me: We digress. Mel will, I have a feeling, do a Whodini. Or at least she'll fade away, if not just vanish. I thought she might hang about for a bit when she wasn't taking the hints but today she seemed pretty much to accept it by the end.

  Luke: I'm still not sure I'm ready to trust her yet.

  Me: To be fair mate, you don't actually have to. She was my girlfriend. And she's not even that any more.

  Luke: All I mean is, it might be a tactic. You know, she's going to act all nice and normal and not hassle you even though she's probably doing her nut right now... just to make you think.

  Me: Make me think?

  Luke: Well you're not entirely sure what she's planning right now are you? She caught you off-guard by just walking off and getting on the tube?

  Me: I guess.

  Luke: There it is. She's left a seed of doubt in there to take root. So you'll think about her. If she acted mental, she knows that would have been it, last nail in the coffin.

  Ed: You can stop staring pensively at the table as well Tom, that's only going to make Luke's point for him. It's just a tiny thing, but clearly it's at the back of your mind... wondering if you've been rash, if maybe there was a chance.

  Me: But I know that's rubbish. I've known that for a while. All it really means is that maybe she'll get out of my hair nice and easy and I can get along with things hassle-free.

  Luke: Unless it is just a tactic, in which case she'll be back in a few weeks at most, and causing trouble.

  Ed: And you need more than just a few weeks to get clear. A few months is a perfectly serviceable time frame for a chap to get shot of any residual girl interest and then move onto the next one. In the meantime you are permitted to do numerous stupid girl related things like snogging a girl from work who you've fancied for ages, regardless of her position, go out on the lash and have yourself a one night stand.

  I grimace at this, but Ed has hit stride and won't be diverted.

  Ed: And above all what you may do is go to strip clubs. This is especially important since as your loyal and supportive friends, we are obliged to accompany you.

  Me: Your girlfriends?

  Luke: Mine is fairly ambivalent to the whole idea. She even went to one once. And anyway, she’ll understand when I tell her that I have a newly single, lonely, moping, pining mate who insists on seeking solace in beer and bosoms.

  Me: I never said that.

  Luke: Yes you did, you’re insistent.

  Ed: What must on no account and under no circumstances occur is ex-sex.

  Luke: The man's right. Do not go back there.

  Ed: And you can stop giving us that look too my boy. That look has no place at this table.

  Sonny didn't turn up that nig
ht so I've no call to tell you about him just yet. Don't worry though, I will. You're wondering why I mentioned him earlier though aren't you? Being that I knew all along that he hadn't been there? Well you'll just have to trust me on this but he will be significant, if not yet then later.

  By the time the landlord had kicked us out the boys had done an admirable job of ensuring that I was not only distracted from thoughts of calling Sally again or why she had not called me back, both of which had been nibbling away at me, but also from entertaining the prospect of calling her until I'd got home and fallen asleep.

  They had also berated, cajoled and harassed me relentlessly about not going back to Mel in a moment of weakness. For my own part I had not offered any resistance to this idea - in fact, neither had I raised the suggestion that it had even occurred to me in the first place - but they were adamant that such thoughts had a habit of taking root deep in one's mind in the days and weeks after a break up and equally adamant that they would weed them out before they got anywhere.

  So I went home, made a sandwich and passed out on the sofa before I made it past the first mouthful. That's the thing about alcohol, it tends to tunnel your vision a bit and you can only respond to each impulse as it comes to you; get home, feed yourself, lie down. The next one in the list would undoubtedly have been to think about calling or texting Sally but I didn't get that far along the line and so the booze got me out of a mess before it got me into one.

  Chapter 9