Don’t You Forget About Me(40)

‘You’re a sweet and innocent soul around the opposite sex, really, George. Jo, are you leaving that bit of chicken …? Good-oh, heft it over.’ Rav shakes his head at Clem and Jo and adds: ‘This is how she ended up dating Robin McNee.’

I guffaw at this. ‘Oh, come on. He was a mistake but my judgement about men’s wiles is not that bad. Is it?’

‘I didn’t mean your judgement so much as you’re modest. Not to be shallow, George, but it was obvious to bystanders that Robin was punching,’ Rav says.

‘Really?’ I ask.

‘Yeah. Together, you looked like Cinderella and an enchanted rat coachman.’





16


In the early hours of Sunday morning, I wake up with a startle from a nightmare. I’m in a brutish medieval village and the members of a baying crowd are taking it in turns to fire arrows at me.

The missiles pepper the board I’ve been tied to, zooming past my face with a thwiiiiiiiick, planting their pointed ends perilously close to my flesh. The anticipation of being skewered any second makes me cry out.

As I come round, I realise the arrows were a figment but the noise is not. I raise myself on my elbows, waiting for it again. DWACK. It’s something hitting my window. I struggle out of the bed covers and vault across the room. Opening the window and leaning out as far as I can go, I see a mop-headed man across the street, shading his eyes as if looking up at the sky in direct sun. Hang on, is that …?

‘Robin?’ I call.

He looks up at me, his face pale in the darkness.

A female voice:

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you hooligan shitbag?’

Oh, no. That’s Karen. Her bedroom is directly below mine and her window must be open.

‘Two Rapunzels for the price of one!’ Robin says, grinning, then lets go of a short scream and starts dancing around, pelted repeatedly with small objects which are being launched from Karen.

‘What the fuck was that?! Ow! Ow … stop … what are you doing?!’

‘Don’t like it when the boot is on the other foot, eh? Piss off before I call the police.’

‘I just want to talk to Georgina!’

‘Georgina—’ Karen’s disembodied voice rings out below me, ‘You know this fucking joker? He’s nearly broken my window.’

‘Er yeah. Wish I didn’t.’

‘Five minutes of your time,’ Robin says, hand on chest, ‘Five, I promise. Or I’ll start singing. What should I serenade you with? The Smiths? Georgina, it was, really nothing … OW! That seriously fucking hurts you know?’ Robin glares up indignantly at Karen, as if he is in a position to complain. Robin and his innate entitlement all over.

‘Plenty more where they came from, shit stain. I’ve got whole tins of Cadbury’s Mis Shapes, I don’t pay for them. No skin off my nose.’

‘It’s taking literal skin off my nose, Bewilderingly Angry Lady Who Lives Underneath Georgina.’

‘I’ll come down, five minutes and that’s your lot,’ I bellow. I don’t wait for any further Karen contribution, close the window and hammer down two flights of stairs to let Robin in the back door.

He seems to take unnecessary time to appear down the ginnel, making me think he and Karen are still picking over differences of opinion.

Great, it’ll be me who gets the Karen blowback from this stunt.

Robin eventually rounds the corner, brushing atomised milk chocolate from his navy Harrington jacket with the tartan lining.

He smells of the wind chill outside, and a pub. I can tell from the swagger as he enters the kitchen that he’s very pleased with this performance, and that he’s thinking it might even make something for a routine. To think I was hitherto impressed by this am-dram bollocks.

‘What do you want?’ I say, folding my arms, suddenly conscious I’m braless in my pyjamas and resenting this intrusion.

‘I wanted to talk to you and you won’t answer the phone to me, which I’m finding quite hurtful, to be honest.’

This man is priceless.

‘And you decided the obvious next step was lobbing stones at my window at gone one in the morning, and waking up my housemate too?’

‘Oof,’ Robin makes a face. ‘Jesus wouldn’t want her for a sunbeam, eh. Has the look of Angela Merkel.’

I shush him while making a furious scowl.

‘I was doing something romantic and unexpected, as a gesture. The kind of thing you want in a man. To show you I’m that man.’

I’ve never told Robin this, so I assume he’s either being sexist or he thinks ‘not sleeping with other people’ is some near-unattainable Mills & Boon ideal.

‘What do you want?’ I ask bluntly, to shake us out of this infuriating semi-ironic, artificial tone he’s trying to set. I would be amazed if this isn’t the first draft of something he’s working on.

‘I want a second chance.’

‘You’re not getting one. Why would you even want it? What happened to the whole “monogamy isn’t my bag, man” thing?’

‘Exactly!’ Robin says, eagerly, and I hiss ‘SHUT UP!’ as we are seconds away from another Karen explosion.

‘That’s what I mean. That’s not been me, it’s never been me and I thought you knew it wasn’t me …’ I grimace. ‘And then I thought: why isn’t it me? You’re an incredible girl. You’re fit, you’re smart. You make me laugh. Look at our repartee! And you know. I’m forty soon, for heaven’s sake.’