Dinner for Two (17 page)

‘I don’t know. Whatever you think’s best.’

‘Okay. How about this? We leave it open. We’ll know when the right time to tell people is, won’t we?’

She squints at me and half nods, which I assume is a sign that we’ve reached an agreement. ‘What shall we do now?’ I ask her.

There’s a long silence and then she asks me if I’m hungry. I say I am and she tells me she’s going to buy me a burger. She takes me to Burger King on Wood Green High Road. The restaurant is crowded with post-school parents, prams and kids from Nicola’s school. Nicola insists on paying because she says it’s only fair as I got lunch last time. It’s really very sweet of her, even more touching because I have to help her out with a small loan as she’s fifty pence short. She orders a flame-grilled Whopper for herself and a Chicken Royale for me. I ask her if she’s going to get them to do it without all the salad and stuff in it. She shakes her head and tells me that she likes to take it out herself. When our food is ready we set down in the middle of the restaurant. Nicola unpacks her burger and removes all of the vegetable matter within. I watch her out of the corner of my eye with a big grin on my face.

We sit there talking for just under an hour, during which I learn more about Nicola’s likes and dislikes (including such highlights as how she likes blue but not orange, isn’t keen on books but loves magazines, has always wanted a horse but is scared of ponies because they were ‘a bit creepy-looking’). She tells me about her mum, how she’d deferred her place at university until the year after Nicola’s birth, then did a degree in music. After graduation she had moved to London with the then four-year-old Nicola and stayed with her aunt while she did a teacher-training course. She is now head of music and drama at Highfields Community School in Hackney.

I want to ask Nicola if her mum is in a relationship but as she doesn’t mention a step-dad and only talks about her mum or her grandparents in Dublin, I presume she must be single – which depresses me. I can’t imagine it’s all that easy to conduct a regular relationship when you’ve got a kid to raise and a full-time job. In the end Nicola mentions in passing a guy called Francis, a doctor, who had been her mum’s boyfriend until the previous summer. The relationship had lasted two years and then one afternoon her mum had asked how she’d feel if Francis didn’t come round any more. Nicola had replied that she’d miss him. Her mum explained to her that things hadn’t been going well between them and that sometimes ‘two people can be in love but want different things’. I ask Nicola if she still misses Francis and she says, ‘Sometimes.’ I think this is all she’s going to say but then she suddenly seems unsatisfied with her answer and adds: ‘He had a big car and he sometimes used to let me play his Ministry of Sound DJ mix album I’ve got as loud as I wanted.’

The following evening I have to review a gig at the Astoria – a new US guitar band who are supposedly the next big thing. I get to the venue just as I hear the support act coming on stage and I think about going straight to the stage but then I realise my need of a beer is greater than my need to watch support acts so I head for the bar. As I order a Holsten Pils, I spot a music journalist I know, Karen Gibbons, and I get her a beer too. Karen works for
Selector
and I’ve known her since the mid-1990s. In all that time we’ve only ever spoken about music. This evening, however, our music-related conversation is reduced to the act we’re reviewing (Me: Have you heard their album? It’s terrible. Her: It’s a real dog, isn’t it?) and then she asks if it’s true that I’m working at
Teen Scene
as an agony uncle. Within minutes of me confirming the rumour, she’s telling me how she’s been two-timing her boyfriend of four months with the drummer from a semi-famous band.

This is not a one-off event: so far I’ve dispensed relationship advice to most of the
Teen Scene
staff as well as a few at
Stylissimo
. The thing is, I feel as if I’m still the same person I was when I wrote about music but now my words and advice appear to carry weight. Do Karen and all the other people who ask my advice really believe I have some sort of insight into the world of love that they don’t? The longer I’m an agony uncle, the more people seem to trust my judgement. If only they knew.

It’s one thirty and Jenny and I are sitting in Wagamama in Lexington Street. We’ve been talking about life at
Teen Scene
for the previous half an hour and just as my vegetable tempura and chicken ramen arrives she drops this bombshell:

‘I’m thinking about leaving Trevor,’ she says flatly. ‘It’s not working.’

‘You and Trevor are good together,’ I say, ‘you have your ups and downs like the rest of us but, you know . . .’ I scramble around searching for the right thing to say ‘. . . you don’t always get perfect.’

‘I know that,’ says Jenny. ‘I think I’d even consider “nearly perfect” or even “just okay” but what Trev and I have isn’t just okay, is it? It’s not like what you and Izzy have.’

I don’t say anything.

‘I don’t even think he loves me,’ she adds.

‘Of course he does.’

‘No, he doesn’t. He likes me, I think I’m not pushing the boat out too far with that one, but I’m not the love of his life, am I?’

She looks at me and then, without waiting for me to reply, carries on eating her noodles.

‘Hi,
Teen Scene
, Dave Harding speaking.’

‘All right, mate, it’s Lee here.’

‘How’s it going?’

‘Fine. Bit busy at the moment, I’m only just about managing to squeeze in a tea-break these days.’

There’s a long pause, mainly because this is the longest telephone conversation I’ve ever had with Lee. He rarely calls me at home (I always call him) and I can count on a single finger the number of occasions he’s called me at work.

‘So?’ I say, in the hope of prompting him to speak.

‘I was just wondering . . .’

‘Yeah?’

‘If Stella had said anything to Izzy about me and her.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like . . . I dunno. Just stuff about me and her. She’s been acting a bit strange with me recently. Just a bit off. You know, starting arguments for no reason and everything.’

‘Isn’t that just how Stella is?’

He laughs but it sounds forced. ‘Yeah, I suppose so. But this is more pointed.’

‘Do you think she wants to split up?’

‘I know she thinks about it. I can just tell. It’s the age thing . . .’

‘It’s not inevitable just because of the age thing.’

‘Yeah, it is,’ says Lee. ‘Of course it is. We knew right from the start that this was never going to work out.’

‘But you’ve lasted this long.’

‘Yeah.’ He sighs.

There’s a long silence and I can just make out someone talking to him in the background.

‘Listen,’ he says, ‘that was my boss. I’d better go and look like I’m doing something.’ He adds, ‘See you at the weekend probably.’

‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘See you at the weekend!’

‘Hi, Dave, it’s Stella.’

‘How are things?’

‘Okay, you know. Overworked, underpaid. And how’s the UK’s number-one agony uncle?’

‘He’s fine,’ I reply. ‘This agony-uncle lark is a good laugh once you get going. I’ve read some classic letters this week. I’ll have to bring them home and show you them at the weekend or something.’ I pause briefly then add, ‘If it’s Izzy you’re after she’s at the gym, I think. It’s her yoga class tonight. She shouldn’t be too late though. I’ll tell her you called, shall I?’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll probably try her a bit later.’

There was a long pause.

‘Dave?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Nothing. It’s okay.’ She pauses again. ‘Has Lee said anything to you?’

‘About what?’

‘About him and me.’

‘Why?’

She sighs heavily. ‘It’s just that I’ve been a real bitch to him recently and I wondered if he might have mentioned anything to you.’

‘But you’re always a real bitch to Lee.’

Stella laughs. ‘Listen, Harding, I only let you get away with stuff like that because you’re my friend’s husband. The thing is, I
have
been a real bitch to Lee.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I think I want us to split up but I’m too much of a coward to do the dirty work.’

‘Are things really that bad?’

‘Yeah, they’re really that bad. You know as well as I do that Lee and I weren’t meant to last this long. He was supposed to be a fling to help me get over Patrick.’

An image of Stella’s old boyfriend comes back to me. ‘He was a really nice guy, I remember.’

‘I know. We were together two years.’

‘What’s he doing? I haven’t seen him since you two split up. It’s weird that the four of us used to go out together all the time, didn’t we?’

‘I bumped into him a while ago,’ says Stella. ‘He’s married now. Two kids. They live over in Kentish Town . . . You two got on really well together, didn’t you? He liked all the same music you did . . . I suppose that’s what happens when people split up. You end up losing some good friends along the way.’

‘Someone a long time ago once asked me what I thought love was,’ says Trevor. ‘I thought for a long time because it was a deep question and eventually I said, “A face”. And they said, “What?” And I repeated, ’A face, I think love is a face. A face that you see day in day out. You wake up in the morning, there’s that face again staring at you from the pillow opposite. You have breakfast there it is once more hiding behind a packet of cornflakes. You kiss that face goodbye as you go your separate ways to work. Eight hours later you kiss that same face hello. The face tells you about its day at work. You tell the face about your day at work. You cook for the face, and it does the washing up from the previous day. And when you go to bed, you kiss the face once more and hope you’ll see it in your dreams. You see a face that much you have to love it, I told her . . . Love it or loathe it.’

Dear Babe,

Okay, I’m beginning to get into the swing of this writing for

women lark. You’re going to love this next column: it’s funny, it’s truthful and it’s light-hearted. Some of it is actually true too.

love

Dave xxx

PS Is the last line a little too cheesy? I spent ages trying to come up with something better that didn’t sound quite so ‘Hey, baby, you’re all right by me!’ Feel free to improve at will.