Blue Collar (28 page)

‘Terry, I liked you. I liked you ever such a lot, in fact. And I thought you liked me, too,’ she told me, in that ‘disappointed’
way women seemed to perfect when they met me.

‘I did,’ I told her.

‘I did,’ I repeated, with a mope.

Charley’s scowl melted a little.

‘I know you did. And I never doubted it. Not even for a second.

So why did you think I thought otherwise?’

I opened my mouth in an effort to explain but realised I couldn’t. I mean, how do you explain paranoia to the person you’ve
been paranoid about without suggesting that all along you secretly suspected they were a fucking arsehole?

‘Er…’

‘What? No, I never said that…’ I tried once more, but Charley pointed out that I’d never said anything.

‘Not to me anyway. You saved all your talking for the boys on the bloody site.’

‘No, what I said was…’

‘And what’s all this shit about Domino?’

‘What?’

‘You heard. My horse, Domino. You think I got rid of Domino because I just got bored of him?’

‘No, I never...’

‘No?’

‘No,’ I professed.

‘Then why did Jason say that on the programme last night?’

Charley demanded.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know why he said any of it,’ I tried to explain. ‘Oh God, everything’s just got exaggerated and blown
out of all proportion. I don’t even know if I’m coming or going any more.’

‘So why do you think I got rid of Domino?’ Charley demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ I squirmed.

‘No, come on, tell me,’ she pressed.

I twisted in the wind a little longer before realising she wasn’t going to be satisfied with my default ‘don’t know’ answer.
‘I guess… I guess you probably just grew out of him or something.

I mean, people do when they’re that age. It’s just what people do,’ I tried to sympathise with her.

Charley fixed me in her sights and pursed her lips.

‘Domino broke his leg when we fell, the same as I did,’ she said.

‘Only you can’t mend a horse’s leg like you can mend a person’s, so the vet had to put him down.’ Charley now looked away,
off into the middle distance and into her past. ‘And it broke my heart when he did. That’s why I never rode again. Not Domino.
Not any other horse. I couldn’t ever bring myself to again.’

‘Oh!’ I grimaced.

‘Yes, oh!’ she confirmed, taking me down a dozen more pegs and finally completing my humiliation. ‘I was no bloody good at
it anyway. I realised that even before the accident, which is why I was concentrating on my exams, but to suggest that I got
rid of him because…’

‘Charley, please, I’m so sorry, honestly, I didn’t know,’ I tried, but I was suddenly having trouble forgiving myself for
this one.

‘You didn’t know anything,’ Charley pointed out. ‘About anything. And you never said anything. Why didn’t you talk to me,
Terry?’

I stared at her incredulous green eyes and finally crumbled.

‘I don’t know,’ I confessed. ‘I… I guess I was just afraid of losing you.’

Charley cocked her head.

‘You must have a really low opinion of me,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘No,’ I told her, now broken to the point of misery. ‘I think you’re wonderful. I always have.’ I dropped my eyes from her
scowl to my boots and told her how it really was. ‘It’s me I have the low opinion of.’

Charley turned back and looked me square in the eye. She didn’t say anything for the longest possible time. Neither of us
did. And I was just starting to think we were locked in a staring competition when she finally blinked.

‘I’m not your old ex, Terry. The one who ran off with the shelf-stacker.’

‘Supermarket manager,’ she acknowledged. ‘And you’re not my horse, as truly bizarre as that sounds.’

I signalled that I understood with a stamp of the hoof.

‘So I want you to listen to me, and listen carefully, because I’m only going to say this once,’ Charley said in a manner that
made what followed even more surprising. ‘You are one of the kindest, warmest and most generous men I’ve ever met. I couldn’t
believe how lucky I was to be going out with you. And I loved being with you. I absolutely loved it.’

Charley took a step closer to me and dropped her eyes from mine.

‘You know what, I’ve never had that much luck with men in the past,’ she said, which was frankly a ridiculous notion, something
akin to Mr T telling me he’d never found a necklace he liked, but Charley looked for all the world sincere. ‘I’ve had boyfriends
and I’ve dated a few guys in my time.’

‘Like Hugo?’

This caught her attention and she narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

‘Yes, like Hugo,’ she confirmed. ‘I only dated him for as long as I did because we were at university together. And that’s
what everyone did at uni.’

‘Date Hugo?’

‘No, go out with the first bloke who came along, no matter how much of a prat he turned out to be,’ she said, before a thought
occurred to her. ‘In fact, I should get commitment points for sticking with him for as long as I did. Talk about a lost cause.

What was I thinking?’

‘But you still see him, don’t you?’

‘As a friend, Terry. As a friend. Are you threatened by that or something?’

‘No,’ I lied. ‘But all the lads just thought it was a bit odd him still hanging around after all these years.’

Charley almost laughed. Almost. ‘Well, you tell the fucking lads from me that he lives around the corner. Of course I’m going
to still see him occasionally.’

‘But why does he live around the corner? Why did he move to Islington after you did?’ I braved… er, on behalf of the lads,
who I thought might be curious.

‘Because he’s a trendy little middle-class boy who works in the media. Where else is he going to live, Terry? Catford?’

Which was a fair point.

‘I guess,’ I conceded.

‘Yes, you do, don’t you?’ Charley suddenly seized upon.

‘What?’ I asked, momentarily confused. ‘What d’you mean?’

Boy, if it was her intention to poleaxe me, she certainly knew where to land her kicks.

‘I honestly had no idea you were getting ready to dump me. None at all. And you can’t have any idea how miserable you made
me when you did. I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t understand it at all and hated myself for months afterwards trying to
work out what I’d done to deserve it.’

‘You didn’t do anything,’ I quickly tried to reassure her.

But back then, I just thought you didn’t like me any more. Or that you’d had enough. Or that you didn’t want to commit. Or
that you’d met someone else. Or… or… I don’t know.’

This all really caught me four-square and true.

‘How was I to know you were having some big crisis of confidence about the scary uptight bitch you were going out with? Jesus,
Terry, why couldn’t you talk to me? Why did you always have to guess?’

‘I don’t know,’ I simply repeated, and almost left it at that.

Well, it was a start.

Charley frowned.

Charley failed to respond with a similar declaration, which was somewhat unnerving, and I suddenly realised I was going to
have to go for this all guns blazing and lay myself bare without the slightest hint of encouragement.

‘Charley, I’m so so sorry,’ I apologised, figuring it was a good place to start. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, I really didn’t,
and I didn’t think I was. I just thought…’

‘What?’ Charley pressed.

‘I just thought I was saving myself a lot of misery by jumping before I was pushed,’ I finally admitted, chucking in my carefully
crafted front and handing Charley the advantage I’d so cravenly clung to for the last eight months. I half expected her to
leap on these words and dance a merry jig all over them, until all I could see was her laughing face when I closed my eyes
at night. But then I guess that had been the problem all along, hadn’t it, because Charley did no such thing. She just thought
for a moment then asked me the obvious question.

‘And did it?’

I sighed, with almost-amusement.

‘No, not really,’ I admitted.

‘As long as it was worth it, then,’ Charley replied, then another thought occurred to her. ‘Also, what was that shit about
St Paul’s Cathedral? Why did you pick that place to dump me? Was that some sort of dig about my dad working in the City?’

‘What? No, honestly. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just…’ My mind raced ahead thirty seconds and saw my future self being
called a malicious cunt in light of a full and frank explanation, so I decided to save that chestnut for a sunnier day and
plumped for a somewhat simpler version. ‘I just thought it was somewhere quiet we could talk. Not a bar, or a pub, or a restaurant.
You know?’

‘Nice. You couldn’t have just dumped me by text like normal blokes do? I can’t seem to go into town these days without having
to go past that place and it’s like a constant shitty reminder of a really shitty day,’ Charley told me.

‘Er, yeah, sorry about that,’ I cringed, knocking back the full explanation even farther from sunny-day admission to deathbed
confession. ‘In fact, I’m sorry about everything. I can’t believe I messed everything up so badly and I’d do anything to be
able to turn back the clock. Anything.’

‘Anything except pick up the phone, obviously,’ Charley pointed out.

‘Well, yeah, of course. Up until five minutes ago I still thought I was the one who was getting dumped by you,’ I said, thinking
about that for a moment before realising I was suddenly confusing myself.

Charley let out a long sigh and leaned against the bricks.

‘Jesus, Terry, I know psychologists who don’t do half the head-churning you do.’

I agreed and offered up the only explanation I could.

‘It’s a manual job, bricklaying. It gives me a lot of time to think. Sorry,’ I shrugged.

Charley thought about this, then told me she’d buy me a radio.

‘Really? What colour?’

This almost jogged a smirk out of her. But not quite. I wasn’t sure we were quite there yet.

Charley pushed herself off the bricks again and looked around.

‘Terry, do you want to go and get some breakfast with me? I think we’ve got a few things to discuss.’

‘OK. I’d like that,’ I said. ‘Come on, there’s a gap in the fence by the toilets. We should probably slip out that way if
we want to avoid all the reporters.’

‘Wow, glamorous. Is this the sort of celebrity lifestyle I can expect from now on with you?’ Charley smirked, following me
up a muddy path as I led her to a bank of lopsided Portaloos around the back of the compound.

‘Maybe. If you want to give me a second chance,’ I said. ‘If you think I deserve one.’

‘Do you think you deserve one?’ Charley asked.

‘Jesus, Charley, I never thought I deserved the first one,’ I told her. ‘But if you give me a another, I swear I won’t make
the same mistakes I made the first time around. Honest I won’t. I’ll never hold out on you again.’

Obviously, it wasn’t just Charley I was swearing this to, but myself. I’d behaved like a right groundworker for most of our
relationship, from the very start in fact, and that was simply no way to behave. From now on, I was going to be straight down
the middle with her, about everything, and let the chips fall where they may. I’d seen how badly things could get when I tried
to do the thinking for both of us and I couldn’t go down that road again. There was just no future in it.

Which was suddenly what we were talking about – a future. We had a (possible) future together. How had that happened? After
everything that had gone before and soured our pot, Charley was here, wading through a water-filled forklift track with me
and discussing our future. Unbelievable. Mind you, not as unbelievable as a girl like Charley taking an interest in a bloke
like me in the first place. I mean, how unlikely was that? But there you go.

‘Why don’t we talk about this over breakfast?’ Charley suggested, stepping from side to side to avoid the slippery mud ruts.

‘OK,’ I agreed, but then stopped dead when a related thought hit me straight between the eyes.

‘What’s up?’ Charley asked, when she saw that I’d stopped.

‘I don’t like eggs Benedict,’ I told her.

‘What?’ she blinked.

‘I just thought I’d say right off the bat that I don’t like eggs Benedict. I don’t want eggs Benedict for breakfast. So I’ll
probably just have a bacon sandwich or something instead, OK, because that eggs Benedict thing isn’t for me, OK? Just letting
you know where I stand,’ I told her, bracing myself for her reaction.