Oh, God. As the horror of this deepens, so its anecdotal value sharply increases, like two different coloured lines on a chart diverging.
‘I’m not disappointed, I’m not turned on, and I really don’t want pity boob play. I only think it’s grim to want women to look pre-pubescent.’
‘Loads of girls my age have Hollywoods,’ Zack says. ‘It’s a thing. It’s different for you guys, I guess?’
Gotcha.
‘Which “guys” are those?’
Zack’s eyes flick from side to side as I can see he knows he messed up, saying that, and doesn’t want to irritate me further. The angry cavewoman stepmom on the premises. ‘People your age?’
‘What age is that?’
‘I don’t know! Thirty? I knew you weren’t my age ’cos your friend had a Credit Suisse Gold card. No need to go crazy bitch on me, OK?’
I laugh, and sigh. Bloody Susie and her affluence.
I came here tonight to proudly assert the fact I could do meaningless wild banging with a near-stranger.
In this dank flat, looking at someone who’s seen too much porn, a callow lad who looks damp to the touch, I fully face into the futility. I was trying to diminish the pain of not having who I wanted, by having disappointing intercourse with someone’s immature younger brother.
Oh, Eve. All this, staked on that moment in a few weeks’ time when Susie raucous-drunk, says: we can’t go back to that bar, can we, Evelyn? and I involuntarily lock eyes with Ed as he involuntarily locks eyes with me, and I see something like pain or conflict. As if those moments are going to add up to something.
Fact check: Ed’s getting married, and you could’ve gone home, cried into a cushion and allowed yourself to feel despair.
The things we do to avoid difficult things are often worse than the difficult thing.
‘I’m not going crazy, I’m just going. I hope Linda sits on you. It’s more contact with a woman than you deserve though,’ I say, with a smile.
I grab my bag, swoop up my coat and gallop back down the stairs. Well, Susie, I think, as I pick my way through the uninhabited chairs and tables, Tusk still trickling out from hidden speakers. You’re going to love this. I know she’s going to say I’ve got one that looks like I’m riding Gnasher from the Beano into battle.
‘Eva!’ Zack says, appearing in the rectangle of light in the opening of the stairway, as I turn the key and yank the bar door open. ‘Can you pay for your drink, please?’
I whip back round.
‘You can’t be serious?’
Zack looks genuinely bewildered that I’m objecting.
‘Yeah. It’s five pounds?’ He steps forward, picks up a menu on the bar and flaps it at me, by way of proof.
In shock, and because I’ve never skipped a bill in my life, I rummage in my purse for a note.
It’s such a dispiriting moment of defeat to end on that as I slap it down, I say, to make it clear I’m not the one who should be embarrassed here:
‘By the way, why didn’t you check I was alright with bald balls?’
‘What?’
‘You wanted to know the deal in advance. What if I recoiled?’
‘You coulda asked. I’ve never known a girl ask for nut fuzz though, hahaha.’
‘I bet you’ve never known a girl ask for anything in terms of personal grooming, maybe think on that.’
‘Shhhhh!’ Zack’s eyes fly wide open. He puts a finger to his lips and jabs an index finger at the ceiling above. ‘Linda,’ he mouths.
I strain to listen … I can hear a soft tapping noise.
I need a decisive exit.
‘Alexa, play “Looking for Linda” by Hue and Cry, VERY LOUD,’ I say, before slamming out.
5
Being in love with someone you can’t have is misery.
Please note: this is not the same as ‘being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back’ because 1) Ed does love me back, or he did, I will show receipts, and 2) while that would sting hard, I am guessing, when it’s unrequited, sooner or later an emotional survival mechanism kicks in and you stop howling at the moon.
Nature wants you to pull through, and procreate. It dials down the heartsick hormones. When feelings are flying in both directions, you’re sunk. Or, I am.
I’m not unique, but it’s not something people talk about, not ending up with the one you wanted. Once you’re settled down, it’s unsayable. It’s expressed in our music, books and films instead.
What’s that quote? Ninety-nine per cent of the world’s lovers are not with their first choice. That’s what makes the jukebox play.
There’s a nice lie that the world likes to tell us all, which is: it’s never too late. It’s too late, all the time, for loads of things. We should all be hurrying like the rabbit with the pocket watch in Alice In Wonderland.
I think the truth is: opportunities in life are like doors flashing open and slamming closed, for good. You won’t necessarily notice when they’re open, or get any warning they’re going to close. If you don’t bolt through them when you can, then that is that.
But no one wants to hear that your chance at happiness is time-sensitive. There’s very little interest in handling the truth that, sometimes, the diem is no longer the right one to be carped. There’s no inspo meme value to that, nobody’s going to put it in a curly font next to a soaring eagle.
The story of myself and Ed Cooper is a door opening and closing.
Susie and I were newly minted sixth formers, loafing in the common room. He and Justin wandered in during a free period, one sunny afternoon. I’d only been ever vaguely aware of them as presentable members of the male species, in our large comprehensive.
I was curled up with my Doc Martens carefully dangling off the upholstery, trying to concentrate on Tuesdays With Morrie. Susie was lying with her back against me, reading her horoscope out from Heat magazine. It was an auspicious day for Aries.
‘Hi. We don’t know you, but you both seem significantly less noisy than everyone else here. Mind if we sit with you?’ Justin said. ‘I’m gay so I’m no threat. He’s not gay,’ he gestured at Ed, ‘but let’s face it, he’s no sexual threat either.’
Susie and I guffawed, and space was made. We didn’t know it yet, but in a single moment, our two double acts had merged forever.
Justin and Ed were good together, Ed as straight man, but both of them very droll in that way boys are when they’ve spent a lot of time practising.
Ed said, pointing at my book: ‘Are you enjoying that?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, it’s sad, but it’s interesting.’
Susie rolled her eyes and said: ‘Eve has a morbid nature. She likes songs without choruses, all hole-dwelling, vole-like creatures, Mafia-widow fashion, wet weather and books about people dying of rare illnesses.’
‘It’s not depressing, it’s full of uplifting wisdom about making the most of your time!’ I say.
‘I said I felt depressed once and you said I wasn’t a deep enough person to be depressed,’ Susie said, and everyone howled. I said: ‘Oh God, sorry.’ (This was a good explainer of why Susie and I work: pithy in our different ways, but we never took the other one’s mockery seriously.)