Don’t You Forget About Me

4

I toy with the prospect of a taxi to Kelham Island, then consider that now I’m on the dole again, the bus is more appropriate. These sort of internal negotiations are alien to Robin.

It’s weird to say, but Robin is sort-of famous. ‘Famous’ is overselling it really, but ‘well known’ is positively misleading. He’s a face and a name you might know if you’re in a very specific age demographic in Britain, watch the obscurer TV channels, follow fringe comedy and are probably a stoner.

When I saw his modern penthouse flat with its lipstick-red leather sofas, white rugs and mezzanine bedroom in a converted factory, I thought wow, challenging offbeat authored comedy pays well.

In the six months we’ve been seeing each other, I’ve witnessed Robin turn down various offers he thought ‘weren’t simpatico with what I’m trying to build’ and toss bills into the bin unopened, yet the lights stayed on and the hot water flowed. Eventually I twigged that income was coming from elsewhere.

Apparently Robin’s dad was some major wheel in the civil service, his parents now retired to the Cornish coast. Robin owned his property outright and ‘I get the rental income from the last place.’ I didn’t inquire any more in case I looked like I was gold digging, eyeing up the portfolio.

‘Are they fans of what you do?’ I asked, tentatively, as code for woah they set you up nicely.

Robin ran a hand through his wild hair. ‘I think “fans” might be overstating it. They want me to fulfil my potential, in whatever I see as my potential.’

Our disparity is never an issue except on the occasions I arrive exhausted from a shift. He’ll shrug and say: ah, sod it off then, as someone who has never understood how it feels to be dangling off the monkey bars with no financial crash mat. His whole inspirational ‘life is what you make it’ schtick grates a bit, as a result.

Though it has to be said, he’s never complained about our differences as a couple, monetarily or otherwise: as the most sinewy, wiry man I’ve ever slept with, he’s very keen on my waterbed belly and marshmallowy arse, and he positively enthuses about staying in my attic room in my terraced house in Crookes.

‘Look at it this way, if you ever want to be a writer, you’ve already got the garret.’

‘Glad you’re enjoying your poverty safari,’ I said, and he said ah poverty safari I like that I’ll use that. He says that quite a lot.

I stub out my fag as the bus arrives and push a Mentos into my mouth. Instead of serving dog food ragu to dismayed punters I have a night off, and the night is young. Chin up.

When I get off at the destination and walk the two minutes to Robin’s, in the dark and cold, I start to question the wisdom of the fabulous surprise concept. I probably should’ve told him …? This is the trouble with being unconventional. You never know when you’re simply being annoying.

As I approach his building, I see Robin near the door: he has a cheap thin blue plastic bag, handles lengthened with the weight of what must be purchases from the corner shop.

This is my moment! I’ll call him and say something like: I hope you have some wine for me in there. I’ll be like Jason Bourne! ‘Get some rest, Pam,’ while Robin jerks his head to see where I’m standing.

I scroll down, hit Robin’s number in my contacts and press the handset to my ear.

Ahead of me, I see Robin pull his iPhone out of his jacket pocket. A moment where he stares at the caller ID, then my line goes blip-blip-blip = call ended. Has he turned it off by mistake? His phone is back in his pocket and he continues towards the flat.

Baffled, and stung, I hit redial. Same process: momentary check, and again, declines it. He’s pressing it fast enough that even if I couldn’t see him, I think I’d know from the desultory length of time it rang that I’d been drop called.

Stubbornly, knowing I’m being uncool, I try for a third time. He’s almost at the door now. If his phone is buzzing, he doesn’t react.

I hear: The phone you have called may be switched off.

What on earth? He’s turned it off? I’m his girlfriend and I got the treatment of an unknown Manchester landline phishing for PPI. Is he angry with me about something? I search my recent memory and nothing occurs. Also, despite his hatred of stand-up comedy critics, Robin doesn’t do fits of temper: either due to his disposition or the quantity of marijuana he inhales, or both.

I’m hurt. As I watch Robin let himself into his block of flats I try to calibrate: how much, and whether I should be.

I anticipate what his excuse will be. Wasn’t in the right frame of mind, didn’t want to inflict myself on you. I called three times though, in quick succession, during what was supposed to be my shift. It could’ve been an emergency? I mean, it’s sufficiently out of the ordinary. Robin calls me a catastrophist but you can be too laid-back.

And I tend to call rather than message as Robin likes to declare himself above ‘the myriad ways of being pestered these days’. Maybe he’s waiting for an important person to get in touch? He was told the BBC’s Head of Light Entertainment might need a chat about now and to keep the line free.

I’m grasping at straws, obviously. My mum used to say that eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves and I feel the truth of that. My temporarily lifted spirits are now in tatters around my feet – I got an insight into how my boyfriend sometimes feels about me, and it’s not done anything for my self-esteem.

I think back to other times I might’ve called and not got an answer: is it often like this? FFS, what does she want now.

I light a cigarette and weigh up my options. If I go back to mine, I might see Karen on her way to her shift and that has to be avoided at all costs. My soul concaves at the thought. I know what I’m feeling and my counsellor told me to name it, when it surfaced: loneliness.

A minute or two later, I’m no closer to a decision, when my phone pings. Esther.

Can you bring red not white? We’re running short on it and I can’t raise Mum. Ta. (Do NOT get some Turning Leaf bin juice from the cash and carry! Spend a tenner min)

Not an ideal audience, but this gives me a chance to rehearse my story, get the lines right to make Robin laugh when I tell him, and I’m still buzzing with the adrenaline of outrage. I call her.

‘Hi, Esther, yes fine about the wine, but I can’t spend a tenner – I’ve just been sacked.’

‘WHAT?’

Maybe this wasn’t the greatest idea.

‘What for?’

‘A customer complained about his food being awful, the customer turned out to be a critic for The Star. Tony fired me in front of him, as if the problem was the service not the kitchen.’

‘Oh dear. This is like that hipster place on Green Lane with the drinks in jam jars where you lost a month’s pay after a row about a bowl of sick and gherkins.’

You know how your family can wind you up in a way no one else can quite hear? Like a dog whistle? To anyone else, Esther sounds sympathetic. To me, instantly bringing up another time I lost my job sounds anything but.

‘They were “kimchi loaded cheesy tater tots” and not really, the manager kept groping my arse so I had to leave.’

‘Well … spend a tenner on the wine and I’ll refund you when you get back.’ I make noises of objection, ‘George, Mark is a member of the Wine Society, he’s not going to drink something from Spar.’

Offstage, my brother-in-law Mark makes tutting noises and then something that sounded like a question.

‘Mark wants to talk to you,’ Esther says.

There’s a rustling as she hands the phone over to Mark.

‘Hi, George,’ Mark says. ‘Sorry to hear about the Italian. This might be a bit soon but striking while the iron is hot and all that, I know a landlord who needs someone to work an event tomorrow night, a pub in town? Under new management. Only one night but it’s cash in hand and a decent amount, if I remember right. Shall I give him your details?’

‘Definitely, thanks,’ I say. Good old Mark.

‘Great, I’m sure he’ll be in touch soon. Best of luck and all that.’

More rustling while Esther wrestles the phone back.

‘Thanks, darling. Can you go check on the dinner please?’ A pause, while Mark is dismissed. ‘Mark’s involved himself by recommending you for that job, the man’s a client.’

Here we go.

‘And?’

‘And please, don’t fuck it up.’

‘Thanks!’ I say, stung. ‘What with me being a known fucker upper.’

‘You know what I mean. Please don’t come back with one of your amusing stories where everything is a huge mess but it isn’t your fault. No incidents. I don’t want there to be incidents and excuses.’

‘Jesus Christ, thank you!’

That’s what Esther really thinks – this is what they all think. Oh how, er, ‘unlucky’. Trouble seems to follow her around doesn’t it? How many times is that now? Mmmm. It enrages me and at the same time worries me. I fear they’re right. Whenever anyone criticises me, I always worry they’re right. I overcompensate with extra outrage.

‘You know what I mean,’ Esther says.

‘In that you mean I’m an incompetent liar? Noted.’

‘Oh, don’t be a diva, Gog. All I’m asking is that you’re considerate towards Mark being connected to this.’

The Gog is definitely manipulative. Makes me and my objections to this characterisation sound small and silly.

‘Got it,’ I say tightly. ‘Thanks, Esther. Oh, my bus is here.’

I hang up before she can reply.

I stub out the tail end of my fag. What to do? I know hanging around at night time on my own is a bad idea. I square my shoulders: he’s had time to settle himself now, if he says, ‘why not warn me?’ I called, right? Not my fault.

I rifle in my handbag and find the key. It didn’t come threaded with ribbon, in a box – it has a West Ham fob as it used to be his brother Felix’s. He crashed with Robin when he was benched with an injury from the Cirque Du Soleil. (Seriously. I wonder if the McNee parents thought they were raising lawyers and doctors.)

Robin handed it over after a row where I’d rung the doorbell endlessly after work, and the Rolling Stones was on too loud for him to hear. He eventually answered to find not only a pissed off, knackered girlfriend but also a very angry, severely jet-lagged next-door neighbour wearing an eye mask round his neck who had heard my endless attempts to raise him. (‘Did he not know you were coming round?’ I was embarrassed to admit – especially to someone who’d been awake for thirty-two hours – that he did know.)

‘Sorry you couldn’t get no satisfaction, you can’t always get what you want. Did you want to paint my red door black?’ Robin said when he finally appeared, not reading the room.

‘Pure twat,’ said the neighbour.

When Robin gave the key to me I asked, what occasions is it for? Robin said: ‘Any time you want to open the door. That’s how they work, isn’t it?’

So, he said it.

5

After knocking with no answer, I turn the key with a snap, the door opens and the vista of the glamorous bachelor pad is in front of me, music set to deafening as it always is. (Robin was playing it earlier in the week. ‘The new St Vincent, it’s good. Also not that it should matter but she’s got a bum like two Crème Eggs in a satin glove.’)

Robin is nowhere immediately in sight. I call: ‘Robin? Robin …’

Nothing. The stereo drowned me out, I think. He’ll be unpacking the Birds Eye waffles and Rustler burgers in the kitchen, no doubt.

Further into the room and still no sight of Robin, though the blue bag is abandoned on the sofa, its contents spilling on to the cushions, multiple tubs of Ben & Jerry’s Vermonster. They’re going to melt over the leather. I twitch to put them in the freezer but it seems officious before ‘hello’.

I peer round into the kitchen, not there.

I lean back and crane my neck to look up, towards the bed on the platform above. I’m about to call ‘Robin’ again and then I hear weird strangled sounds, distinct from the official soundtrack.

Ugggggh fuuuu

Nuf-nuf-nuf mmmpppppf

Don’t … don’t … oh my God, yes

I freeze to the spot. My skin goes cold and yet hot, prickling with shock. Did I hear what I think I heard. Is this possible. Is this happening. No. No? It can’t be. This happens to other people, not me, not right now. This is a hilarious mistake and it’s going to end up in Robin’s act, that time his girlfriend walked in on him doing yoga or whatever.

St Vincent reaches another sonic lull and this time it’s:

Uh uh UGH

You like this don’t you, say you like it.

The second line is familiar to me and I feel a lurch, a sudden acrid wash of vomit pending at the back of my throat. I stand motionless as the rhythmic heaving in the background continues. I can pick out an intermittent pressure on a bed frame that’s unmistakable now.

I can’t look. But I definitely can’t not look. Having to focus to steady my hands, and tiptoe towards the metal ladder, I mechanically and carefully climb the rungs to the mezzanine level, planting my heeled boots with precision. I never liked this thing at the best times, made going for a drunk nocturnal wee feel like the Crystal Maze.

I poke my head up above floor level, sweaty hands fastened to the aluminium.

In the large low bed beneath the skylight, I see Robin’s bare arse pistoning up and down, a pair of skinny white female legs splayed either side. Disbelief. Revelation. Revulsion. And the thought: God, do we look like that when do we it?

It strikes me how weird it is to see two people having sex, up close, in real life. You’ve been one of the people, you’ve seen it happen on a screen enough, but an on-premises spectator to the act? Totally surreal. I’m still not quite believing what I’m seeing, as if Robin might’ve tripped and fallen and be having trouble getting back up again.

I can’t help comparing. It’s a lot more frenzied and noisy than we are. We were.

Do it Robin do it I love you aaaaaahhh

Lou. Talk. Dirty.

This is said while punctuated with a thrust each time, and suddenly, without making a conscious decision to announce my presence, I snap and yell: ‘WHAT THE FUCK?!’

Both bodies jerk and spasm with the shock of my joining the conversation and Robin falls sideways from the bed with the effort of getting off the woman, and turning round to look at the same time.

The woman wriggles to sit up and I see that a) she is tied to the bed posts by her wrists with scarves, one of which is a striped football scarf I recently ran through a hot wash for him b) she has small breasts, with nipple rings like barbells, a flower tattoo curling round her ribcage and c) she is coated in some sort of pale, lumpy substance, which after a second’s disorientated fright I realise comes from squashed tubs nearby, the emptied-out contents of a Vermonster.

As she boggles at me through a cloud of mussed spirally brown hair and I boggle back at her I realise I know who she is – she’s Robin’s PA, Lou.

Robin stands naked, hair like a fright wig, erection now at half mast, as if it’s been lowered out of respect for a visit by the Queen. He’s as pale as the Vermonster.

‘Oh God fucking hell Georgina what are you doing here?!’

‘I got sacked from work. What are you doing?’

‘What … well … how did you get in?!’

Robin seems angry with The Fates rather than himself, as if this is one terrible admin cock-up, as opposed to his cock half up.

‘You gave me a key?’

‘Oh, God …’ the truth dawns on Robin: the architect of all of his pain was himself. He was going to try some very thin defence that I’d somehow broken in. As the realisation settles, he splutters: ‘You don’t think you should’ve knocked first?’

That he thinks he can do self-righteousness at this moment absolutely astounds me.

It also makes anger overtake my shock. I’m back in some control of myself.

I purposely let him watch my line of sight go slowly back to Lou in the bed, who looks like she’d really like to be untied now; squirming against her bonds, red in the face, then back to him, and lastly down to his wilting member. I give it a good withering stare.

‘I did. I wasn’t heard over the music. You pathetic, treacherous piece of shit.’

I descend the ladder fast, jumping the last part so that my knees and ankles jar as I hit the ground. Robin gives chase, which means he has no time to dress himself, so as I near the door I’m confronted again by a stark bollock man.

I hate him even more for it – not enough shame to scramble to cover up. He’s to some extent performing, even now. Look at my vulnerability. Look at my unconventional lack of artifice. I’d like his unconventional artifice to be behind a towel, thanks.

‘George, George, wait, I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘Yeah so am I. It’s not every break-up that comes with a therapy bill. I feel sick.’

‘Break up …?’

I turn to look him in the eyes.

‘You don’t seriously think I’m staying with you?’

‘No, not tonight, obviously.’

I blink, taken aback. ‘Are you clinically insane? It’s over, Robin, we’re done. I don’t know how you can think we could have a relationship after this.’

Robin pauses and says: ‘Relationship? I … I didn’t think we were going out?’

I’m so stunned by this it takes a moment to assemble my expression, and form a response.

I only manage:

‘… What?’

‘I thought we were “seeing each other”.’ Robin makes air quote marks. ‘I didn’t think we were exclusive … as in, forbidden from seeing other people? That whole scene is not my … scene.’

My blood feels like it’s caught fire. It’s one thing to do this to me, it’s another to blame me for it – to pretend this is a product of my unreasonable expectations.

‘Are you fucking serious?! You’re going to handle this by pretending our relationship didn’t exist? That’s like a CHILD’S level of lying. Will you put your hands over your eyes next, so I can’t see you?’

Robin pantomimes more exhaling, shaking his head in incredulity, rubbing at his hair as he thinks what to say next, a tic he uses on stage. God, the insolence of still having his gingery cock and balls on show.

‘I’ve never seen you like this before,’ he mutters.

My jaw, once again, drops. ‘Do I need to point out what I’ve never seen before, either? Are you for real?’

He puts his hands on his hips, Mr Reasonable But Aggrieved now, as if we’re discussing an inflated quote for lagging the loft.

‘What was it I’ve ever said or done that’s made you think I believed in monogamy? I’m pretty sure I said I didn’t?’

I splutter, momentarily stalled. It’s as if someone’s been caught with their hand in the till and their defence is nothing is as it seems and theft can’t exist because we’re living in a false consciousness created by the CIA. It’s not a comeback you’ve planned for. Fuck me, I’m raging.

‘This is it, this is your excuse? You thought we were both free to have sex with other people?’

‘Uh, yes I did, Georgina. The terms and conditions of our liaison were never discussed. I’m not sure how you’d expect me to know otherwise.’

‘Then why hide it from me by switching your phone off and doing it behind my back?’

‘It’s poor manners to shove it in your face, isn’t it? I didn’t expect you to put up with a running commentary of who else and when.’

‘OH HOW EXCEPTIONALLY FUCKING CONSIDERATE OF YOU!’

I have to get out of here, mentally process it, escape this toxic weirdness.

I throw the door open to the hallway. A thirty-something couple and sixty-something parents are passing outside, their attentions already focused in our direction due to the cacophony.

True to his self-described not-sensitive, not-bashful nature, my ex not-boyfriend stands staring back at them, full frontal in their faces.

The dad says, ‘Excuse me! Do you mind covering your private area? There are ladies present.’

‘I’m in my private area. This is my flat. That makes you Peeping Toms.’

‘Peeping Vom more like,’ says the son, aka Jet Lag Man, who’s suddenly my new hero.

‘Having your toilet part on show really is unnecessary,’ says Jet Lag Man’s dad.

‘My toilet part! You want to get less uptight about the human anatomy, mate,’ Robin says. ‘It’s a beautiful thing.’

‘I can assure you, not from here it’s not,’ says Jet Lag Man.

‘Give my best to Lou,’ I say to Robin, stepping in to the hallway. To the disturbed-looking group, I add helpfully: ‘That’s the woman I just caught him having sex with.’

‘Oh, he finally got you a key cut?’ says Jet Lag Man.

‘Yeah but apparently we were never in a relationship,’ I throw my hands up in ‘silly me’ way.

‘It’s never his rubbish in my bin either,’ says Jet Lag Man. ‘He’s full of shit. Much like my bin.’

I vigorously shake Jet Lag Man’s hand.

‘It’s been a pleasure.’