Beta Male (24 page)

I laughed encouragingly, which was a mistake as she rounded on me again. ‘Anyway, you guys think you have it so hard, don't you?
There's too much choice to settle down just yet. My girlfriend traps me. I'm going to lose touch with my friends. I'll never be able to sleep with anyone else again.
' She reverted to her normal voice. ‘Yes, I know what you talk about among yourselves. But please, don't think it's all that easy for women, either. We fall for someone, and we fall for them hard, but then we spend the whole time scared that they're going to string us along for eight years before running off with someone else once they've found their feet a bit more in the world. Because you can, can't you? Growing older is easy for you. You get better with age while twenty-five-year-old girls just stay the same. And meanwhile we're getting older, too,
which means less attractive, as well as more familiar to you and therefore even less attractive in your eyes. No, don't shake your head. That's the fundamental difference between guys and girls, isn't it? The more we like and know you, the more we want to settle with you. The more you like and know us, the more you think,
To hell with this, I've nabbed her now, and if she likes me, I bet lots of other women will, too, so I'll go and get myself an upgrade until I get bored with her as well
.'

I stared at Jess open-mouthed. No woman had insight like this into a man. Was she a hermaphrodite? Had she tortured Alan to give up the inner workings of our psyche?

Jess took advantage of my surprise to continue: ‘You know what the real problem is with men, Sam? You think a relationship is like a job interview – a one-off assessment at the beginning, after which you either get the girl or you don't. And once you think you've got us, you relax and don't make an effort any more. A long-term relationship for a woman, on the other hand, is a never-ending, performance-related, 360-degree appraisal. And it's one you often fail.'

Jess heaved a huge sigh, as if trying to shift the weight of the world from her shoulders. It didn't seem to work. She continued: ‘Those are some of the stereotypes about men and women, anyway. The truth is that we think a lot like you as well. Has Alan been freaking out about getting engaged? Probably. But I can tell you that I've had a little freak-out of my own. I'm also worried about losing touch with my friends. I'm also worried about never sleeping with anyone else again. One day, if I forgive him for what he's done, and he forgives me for what I haven't done, we'll probably have children together. And how much do you think that will trap me? How much do you think that terrifies me? More to the point, how much do you think it annoys me that I'm going to have to spend most of the rest of my life competing with his bloody mother for his affections?'

‘None of us exactly fits the male stereotype, either, do we?' I said, eventually finding my voice. ‘Ed the suffragit. Matt the
unmarried house-husband. Me… well, me. And in Alan you could not find more of a rock. You will never find anyone who loves you more than him.'

‘Alan fits the male stereotype perfectly. He cheated on me with Amanda – a woman who is better-looking, more successful and a great deal thinner than I am.'

‘Why are you so sure he cheated on you with Amanda?'

‘I read the letter you sent Alan, and it all makes sense, doesn't it? Amanda blackmails Alan with his career and he's too weak to stand up to her. He also gets a final fling into the bargain. You heard what Amanda said at our engagement party.'

‘It meant nothing,' I said. ‘She's manipulative and a bit of a drunk. She was just winding him up.'

‘I saw Alan's face,' said Jess. ‘I know that look of guilty terror.'

‘And I know that that look is just terror. Nothing more.'

‘Nonsense.'

I shook my head vigorously. Jess continued: ‘There's something else, too. After reading your letter to Alan, I wrote to Amanda and told her to leave him alone. As you know, I'm not the kind of person to let this sort of thing lie. Well, it was a fairly stupid thing to do, all things considered. After you'd been bundled out of my engagement party, Amanda passed me on her way out and whispered in my ear, “You must be Jess. Never think you can get one over me by writing such slanderous drivel. Oh, and by the way, your fiancé is a dreadful shag.”'

‘Well, there you go,' I said. ‘You wound up Amanda and she decided to take it out on you.'

‘She took it out on me because it's true: she's shagged Alan and wants to steal him from me.'

‘Rubbish. I trust Alan. I always have done, always will. I know him better than you.'

Jess started to protest, but I continued: ‘Anyway, this is more about me than him. Amanda is just a psycho trying to get back at me.'

Jess listened patiently while I told her the full story of what had happened at Alan's office party in the summer. When I got to the end, she gave a half-smile and said, ‘So this actually is your fault, then, whichever way you look at it?'

I didn't have it in me to smile back. ‘Yes. But I'm trying to make amends. Just tell me what I have to do to put things right and I'll do it.'

‘The way I see it,' she said, authoritatively, ‘is that the two of us finally have something in common: the fact that everyone hates us right now. But if we can work together to convince Alan we didn't sleep together then he might be persuaded to have the balls to convince me that he didn't sleep with Amanda. Then no one loses face and we all waltz off happily into the sunset.'

We stayed up most of the night on Ed's sofa – discussing how we would go about doing this, as well as talking about normal stuff: jobs, families, friends. It was a conversation we should have had years ago – eight years ago, to be precise. I had never got to know Jess, I had only got to know ‘Alan's girlfriend': Alan's girlfriend who had taken him away from his friends; Alan's girlfriend who had kept him under the thumb; Alan's girlfriend who had never made much effort with us. I hadn't liked ‘Alan's girlfriend' much. Alan's girlfriend hadn't liked me that much, either. But Jess? Jess, when I finally met her eight long years later, was very likeable indeed. She was a little bit brash for me – a bit brash, a bit fat, a bit posh, very much not my type – but she was funny and bright and so evidently perfect for Alan. Earlier that morning I had resolved to get Alan and Jess back together because I felt horrendously guilty, because it felt like the right thing to do to atone for all the wrong things I had done. By the early hours of the following morning, I had resolved to do it because I wanted to.

I used to be jealous of Jess having Alan to herself. A tiny bit of me that night grew jealous of Alan for having Jess to himself. If I'm honest – because no one would believe me if I didn't
share this – my final, half-smiling thought before losing consciousness was how ironic it would be if, after all this, we had ended up shagging, right there and then, ‘victims' both, on Ed the suffragit's second-hand sofa.

*

Somehow we managed to resist the irony, although it amused me that when Ed came downstairs for breakfast and saw the two of us wrapped up for warmth, and lack of anywhere else to go, on the same sofa, he sneered: ‘No, Sam, you didn't, did you?'

I didn't reply for a moment, enjoying his look of shock.

‘Don't tell me you've let another woman use you,' he continued. ‘Have some self-respect, man.'

Fortunately, Jess laughed. ‘It would be a pretty effective revenge, wouldn't it, if Alan had cheated on me with Amanda?'

Ed and I laughed, too, desperately hoping Alan hadn't.

‘Would you?' I asked Jess, smiling.

‘If you were the last man in the world, yes.'

I jumped off the sofa, stealing the covers, and performed a little victory dance.

‘It doesn't mean I've forgiven you yet,' laughed Jess, her teeth chattering in the cold.

Still, it was a start and I was glad of the horseplay, for it was the last bit of entertainment I was to have for a while. The highlights of that Saturday morning included a further 587 people joining the Facebook group in my honour, three of them in Honolulu, and a phone call from the director of
Richard II
to sack me because another cast member had alerted her to the group and she was so horrified by my actions that she couldn't bring herself to work with someone like me.

‘Aren't second spear-carriers allowed to be cunts?' asked Ed, sympathetically.

‘Evidently not,' I said. ‘Although I bet it was the third spear-carrier who shopped me.'

I didn't tell Ed how disappointed I really was. That job had meant a lot to me. It also felt like my one of my last surviving links with Rosie. Had it not been for Rosie's encouragement, I would never have come within an inch of being second spear-carrier.

I spent the rest of the afternoon desperately trying to get hold of Rosie on my freshly charged phone, but she clearly didn't want to talk. Mary wouldn't answer her mobile, either. ‘I don't care about Mary, but you really have to get hold of Rosie,' urged Jess. ‘We can't carry out our plan if you don't.'

All I actually wanted to do was to write a cowardly apology letter to both of them. A letter had worked with Alan. But no, Jess was right. The time for cowardice was over. I resolved to start with Mary, despite what Jess had said. Mary would be easier. Mary could start the ball rolling. I didn't care that much about her, but I did at least owe her an explanation. So I showed up outside the church in Clapham on Sunday in hope of forgiveness.

It came readily, but not in the way I had expected.

‘Oh, don't worry about all that,' said Mary, taking my arm and unleashing a stream of consciousness as we strolled around the church grounds. ‘I was fairly sure you were faking it, but Lisa said you were quite a laugh so I was willing to go along for the ride to see where it ended up. Not all of us want to get married straight away, you know. Some of us girls just want to enjoy ourselves and have a fling. Plus, you're the kind of guy who would get on well with Daddy so I thought, hell, if I have to marry a Christian eventually to please him then this one is more fun than the rest of them and looks like he might be some use in bed. But then you got all dreary and overly zealous, and so I was going to end it myself.' She broke off to wave at Stock Market Christian, who was revving his Porsche on the other side of the car park. ‘Anyway, I'm with Jason now. It's a win-win, really. Either Daddy likes him and he gives up his job to live happily ever after with rich little me, or I give up my job and live happily ever after with fairly rich little him.'

‘You're both faking it?' I asked, incredulously.

‘Oh, no. I believe it sometimes. It's better than believing nothing, I suppose. And he
really
seems to believe it. Makes him feel better for being so rich, I guess. Either that or he's faking it to get into my pants. Who knows?' Stock Market Christian tooted his horn. ‘Anyway, must go. No hard feelings. I hope it works out with that other girl. She seemed nice enough. Sorry about the Facebook group and the fighting and everything.' She kissed me goodbye, somewhere near both ears. ‘Oh, but you'd better pay Daddy back at some point or he'll be livid. He's more of the “eye for an eye” school of thought.'

And with that Mary skipped across the car park, her long, elegant legs and glossy mane vanishing into Stock Market Christian's low-slung car, leaving me with the distinct impression that I had indeed been used.

Deciding that that was quite enough for one weekend – the confrontation with Rosie could wait for Monday – I went back to Ed's place, where he, Claire and Jess were sitting on the sofa discussing the only thing any of us discussed at that moment: the engagement party from hell. Jess still hadn't managed to speak properly to Alan and appeared unwilling to return to the flat they used to share and confront its memories. But at least Claire had finally decided to believe us, which I suppose was a start to winning back my friends. We chatted for a while – the same circuitous conversation about whether or not Alan had slept with Amanda – until Claire and Ed grew bored and excused themselves, leaving the two pariahs alone.

‘So how did it go with Mary?' asked Jess. I hadn't wanted to share the scene outside church with the others, but I felt Jess had the right to know. We were in this together now.

‘Oh, priceless!' She could barely stop laughing after I'd told her. ‘You and Mary are as bad as each other. You actually deserve to be together. Oh, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall. Did it dent your pride?'

‘Maybe Rosie was using me, too,' I said, ignoring her. I didn't
think any of this was at all priceless. It was costing me a lot, in every sense.

‘I doubt it somehow. I think Rosie actually loved you More fool her.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because it was me who told her that your name isn't Max.'

‘You did what?' I could feel the blood rising as, suddenly, it all became so obvious.

‘Well, as you know, I read the letter you sent to Alan,' said Jess. ‘I was so angry that you'd been rude about me to him, and then I read how you were stringing these poor girls along… Well, it made a mockery of how I see a proper, loving relationship.
How dare you criticise ours
, I thought, and yet treat your own so cavalierly. It made me so livid that I wanted to punish you somehow. I thought about it long and hard, and in the end I just couldn't stop myself. Rosie was clearly the one you actually liked. You mentioned where she worked in your letter. It wasn't very hard for me to track her down and send a warning email. I just didn't expect her to turn up in the middle of my engagement party… '

I wanted to scream at Jess. I wanted to yell in her face and call her a treacherous bitch who had wrecked my life. What right did she have to play moral arbiter? Who had asked her to poke her nose into my relationships? I'd loved Rosie. She'd loved me. It was all going perfectly well until Jess had got involved. I was phasing out the lies. I was slowly killing Max. I was seeing less of Mary…