Life and Soul of the Party (22 page)

‘What about you?’

‘Why don’t you stay at mine?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can.’

‘I’ll do whatever you want me to do.’

He meant it too. ‘Look, Billy, it’s lovely of you to offer but you know . . .’

‘What?’

‘Please don’t make me spell it out?’

‘But I need you to,’ he replied. ‘I need to know why.’

I looked into his eyes and could see that he genuinely believed there was no good reason for me not to say yes. And right there on the spot I wished that I had Billy’s confidence in us. I wished that I shared his confidence in me.

‘I can’t move in with you because I’ll mess things up like I usually do.’

‘You think I’m trying to rush things, don’t you?’

‘Well, aren’t you?’

‘Look, I’m not trying to overwhelm or confuse you or anything like that. I just want you to know how serious I am about you – about us. That’s not a crime, is it?’

‘Of course not,’ I stumbled, unable to find the right words, ‘These past few months have been amazing, Billy, but that’s all they’ve been . . . a few amazing months.’ I willed myself to continue, fearing that I might be about to hurt him. ‘Paul really broke my heart you know, Billy. He broke it and there were times when I thought it would never recover.’ I closed my eyes and exhaled. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be, it was something I needed to hear. But you seem to be forgetting that I’m not Paul. With my hand on my heart, Mel, I promise you I’d never hurt you in a million years. And what I’m really trying to say to you is this: I don’t really want you to move into mine – I want us to look for a place for the two of us to live together. Not flatmates or housemates. Just you, me and . . . a cat.’

‘A cat?’

‘Of course we’d get a cat. We’d get a cat and we’d call him something like . . . I don’t know . . . Charlie. And the place we’d get would be in Chorlton and okay . . . maybe it wouldn’t be the biggest place in the world but it would be ours and we wouldn’t have to share it with teddy-bear-collecting freaks or even Seb and Brian and their film-poster collection.’

Listening to him paint this picture of the future made me realise that I didn’t want to view a million and one unsuitable flats just to find a half-decent room in one. And I didn’t want to have to share a flat with complete strangers. What I wanted was a life. A proper life. With someone I loved and who loved me right back. So without wasting another moment I found myself saying yes.

Melissa and Billy’s

House-Warming

Party

It had been a long road that Billy and I had had to travel in order to make it to the moment when we could finally throw a party of our own. On the night of Chris and Vicky’s anniversary we’d gone back to mine. Still feeling bad about my earlier argument with Creepy Susie I asked Billy to go and make us both a cup of tea while I knocked on her door and apologised to her again for the way that I’d spoken to her earlier.

Susie’s eyes lit up when I told her the news. She got so carried away with the romance of it all that she even told me to forget everything she’d said earlier and take as long as I needed to find a place of my own. I promised Billy and I would start looking first thing in the morning and that hopefully it wouldn’t take too long.

The very next day Billy and I started flat hunting and within a week we’d found a one-bedroom flat five minutes from my old place that we could just about afford. It was in a Victorian house conversion and as flats went it wasn’t exactly huge but it was clean, bright and well maintained and more importantly, it was going to be ours. On the morning that we were supposed to drop off our deposit with the letting agent, however, they called with some story about a mix-up that had resulted in another couple also being shown ‘our’ flat. According to the agent this other couple were prepared to pay a hundred and fifty pounds a month more than we were! At first Billy wanted to match the offer because he knew that we’d never find a flat as nice as this one again but I hated being held to ransom and persuaded him that the best thing to do was to tell the agents what they could do with their ‘accidental mix-up’ and carry on looking.

A week later, still with no success, we decided to drown our sorrows and take ourselves off for a night of good food and drinking. Starting at Neelams with a quick curry we gradually gravitated towards Blue-Bar where we bumped into Billy’s sister Nadine. Nadine was out with Karen, an old university friend, and while we were talking it came out that Karen was a lawyer, who had just got a promotion that would involve her being relocated to Singapore for six months. She was worried about her cat because she couldn’t take it with her and asked us if we had any trustworthy friends who wouldn’t mind baby-sitting a cat in return for cheap rent in a nice house. Before she had even finished her sentence we’d practically jumped down her throat and begged her to let us have it.

The house was much more impressive than the flat we’d lost out on. It was a beautiful three-bedroom Edwardian terrace on a great road just opposite Chorlton Park. The ceilings in all the downstairs room were really high and the windows so large that they flooded the front sitting room in light. Once we’d had the guided tour, Karen took us out to the utility room at the back of the house and introduced us to Thomas, her three-year-old Chartreux, who was lying in a fur-lined basket on top of the washing machine. He was, as cats went, pretty ordinary looking, with light grey fur, green eyes and a low-slung stomach. Karen obviously adored him so Billy and I tried our best to adore him too but he didn’t appear all that interested in us. I think this gave Karen the reassurance she needed that whilst most cats might be fickle, she was undoubtedly number one in Thomas’s heart. Satisfied with our cat-keeping capabilities she handed us a set of keys and asked us if we had any questions. I was about to say no, when Billy piped up, ‘I know it’s a bit cheeky but would it be okay if we throw a party here?’

For a moment I thought that Karen was going to change her mind and throw us out on the spot but she just laughed and told Billy she had thrown more parties here than she cared to remember and that as long as nothing got stolen, the place didn’t get wrecked and Thomas was okay we could do whatever we liked.

We moved in the next day. And for that short time I was happier than I ever thought might be possible. Everything was going right for me. At long last I’d managed to put the past behind me and the party, mine and Billy’s party, was supposed to be the icing on the cake, a celebration of everything we were and everything we hoped to be. But then while I was out getting things for the party, I took the phone call from Chris telling me that Paul had died and after that nothing was ever quite the same again.

It was just after nine in the morning and I was sitting at the dining table struggling to finish the eulogy that I was supposed to be delivering in a few hours at Paul’s funeral service. Everything I wanted to say sounded insincere and cliched the second I’d written it down. It was as if the very act of picking up a pen rendered me incapable of writing a sentence without resorting to something that I’d seen in a film or watched on a soap opera. What I really wanted was to say something from the heart – something that would do justice to the memory of my friend. But nothing I could ever hope to write could achieve this most impossible of tasks.

I’d been at work when I got the call from Hannah’s mother.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I was wondering whether I might be able to speak to a Mr Christopher Cooper?’

My first thought was that I was being cold-called by one of those dodgy companies that are always flogging replacement mobile handsets. I seemed to get a dozen or so of these kinds of calls a week and each one only served to make me wish that I had an air horn at the ready so I could blast it down the phone. I was a split second away from cutting her off altogether when she told me she was calling with regard to ‘a Mr Paul Rogers’ and that was when I finally realised that the woman’s voice (grave, middle-aged and well spoken) was unlike that of any cold-caller I’d ever encountered.

She told me she was Hannah’s mother and was calling on her daughter’s behalf, then went on to say — and these were the exact words she used – that she had
‘some rather awful news’.
My first thought was that something had happened with Paul and Hannah’s baby. The last time I’d seen Paul he’d told me that Hannah’s due date was only a few weeks away. Maybe there had been some kind of complication and Hannah was in hospital. With Vicky being pregnant too the thought that something bad might have happened to Paul and Hannah’s unborn child made me feel doubly sick to my stomach. I braced myself for the ‘awful news’.

‘It’s about your friend Paul. I’m sorry to have to say that he was involved in a car crash on the south-bound carriageway of the M6. It happened just after eight this morning. A lorry crossed the central reservation. Paul was one of six fatalities.’

Everything after this point was a blur. After I’d put down the phone I remember colleagues gathering round me asking what had happened. All I could say was: ‘It’s my friend. He’s gone.’ Helping hands ushered me into the corridor. A cup of ice-cold water from the dispenser was pushed in my hand. ‘Drink it and you’ll feel better.’ Even at the time I thought that that was asking a lot of a simple paper cup of water but I did as instructed. And while it didn’t make me feel better this simple act brought me to my senses enough to realise that it was up to me to call the others and let them know what had happened. And Melissa would be the first person that I would call.

That was less than a week ago and now here I was trying to write my best friend’s eulogy. Sensing that I was no longer alone I looked up to see Vicky standing in the doorway of the living room wearing a long black dress. She looked beautiful – her face, her smile, everything about her — just too perfect for words.

She came over and draped her arms around my neck. ‘Everyone is on your side, Chris,’ she said quietly. ‘Whatever you say will be right for Paul.’

‘I still can’t believe it. I’m going to bury my best friend.’

‘I know, sweetheart. I know.’

‘None of it seems real.’

‘I know.’

‘He’s never coming back.’

‘You’re right,’ she said softly. ‘He isn’t coming back. And there’s nothing we can do about it. We just have to hang on to each other as tightly as we can and hope that through some miracle tomorrow will be better than today.’

As Vicky kissed the top of my head the front doorbell rang.

‘That’ll be Melissa,’ said Vicky, looking over at the clock on the wall. ‘You go upstairs and get ready and I’ll let her in.’

My finger was still hovering over the bell as Vicky opened the front door. We hugged on the doorstep and I followed her into the kitchen. She asked if I fancied a tea and although I declined, that didn’t stop her from taking three mugs out of the cupboard above the kettle.

‘Is the third one for William?’

‘It’s for you.’

‘You won’t take no for an answer, will you?

She shook her head. ‘So Billy decided not to come after all?’

‘He wanted to . . . you know, for me . . . but this morning I asked him not to. Do you think that was the wrong thing to do?’

‘It’s complicated, isn’t it? The important thing was that he wanted to do what was best for you. You can’t ask for more than that.’

I watched her take the milk out of the fridge and set it down on the surface next to the mugs. ‘Where’s Chris?’

‘He’s upstairs getting ready.’

‘And William?’

‘Upstairs probably talking to Chris about how much he likes it at Grandma’s.’ Vicky smiled. ‘We’re dropping him at my mum’s on the way to the church.’ She paused. ‘And how are you? Did you sleep at all last night?’

‘Not really.’

‘Chris didn’t either.’

I nodded.

‘Has he finished writing his thing yet?’

‘No, but I’m sure he’ll be fine.’ She hugged me tightly. ‘I’m here for you, you know? If you want to talk . . . or you feel like it’s all getting a bit much just say and I’ll straighten everything out.’

‘You’ve been really great this past week, Vicks.’ My voice started to crack. ‘The absolute best. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.’

Since Paul died I’d spent a lot of time at Chris and Vicky’s. After Chris’s phone call I caught a cab straight over to theirs because it seemed like the only place to be. And by the time I’d arrived Cooper was already there and the four of us did our best to comfort one another. As news of what had happened spread across south Manchester and everyone started calling for further information, Chris did his best but when it reached the stage that the phone was ringing literally every five minutes Vicky made the decision on Chris’s behalf to turn on the answer phone and let him get some rest. The most surreal moment was at six o’clock when we turned on the news and there was a three-minute report on the crash. Paul’s name wasn’t mentioned directly, instead he became, ‘a thirty-six-year-old social worker based in south Manchester’. Vicky and I left the room before the report had even finished and sank down on the stairs sobbing in each other’s arms.

As the kettle came to a rattling boil Vicky dropped tea bags in each of the mugs and poured the water over them and as we waited for the tea to brew we talked about normal things like Vicky’s pregnancy and for a few moments I forgot what this terrible day was supposed to be.

‘I’d better go and finish getting ready. Will you be all right entertaining yourself for a little while?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ I said as the kitchen door burst open and William walked in. He was wearing jeans and a green tracksuit top with red piping that was zipped up right underneath his chin. A toy dinosaur dangled from his right hand.