question?’
‘How come you’re going to the ballet when you don’t even like musicals?’
‘I don’t not like musicals,’ says Jim, nervously pulling on his jacket collar. ‘I just don’t like all of them that’s all.’
‘So exactly what musicals do you like?’ says Vicky. I can tell she is enjoying this line of questioning.
‘Chicago,’ Jim shrugs.
‘Chicago?’ Vicky splutters.
‘Yeah, Chicago. You know, the one that was made into a gangster film.’
‘The one with loads of chicks in suspenders and stockings, you mean?’ I cut in.
‘That’s the one,’ winks Jim.
Vicky nods her head sagely.
‘Ah yes,’ she says. ‘I should imagine you like that one.’
Jim looks at us, gives a short laugh, then looks away, shaking his head.
This is his ‘teacher’ face. It says, ‘will you all just grow up’. And the thing is, annoyingly, it kind of becomes him. Whereas everyone else went through – and came out the other side of – the ‘I want to become a teacher’ stage (spurred on by fantasies of standing on tables making inspiring speeches like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society), Jim actually did it. And he was a natural too. So much so that in less than three years of teaching English to the little tyrants at Westminster City School he had been made Head of Department. Jim can talk about Shakespeare like he’s talking about Neighbours: he knows his stuff, is genuinely mad about the subject and yet manages to never sound like a pretentious wanker. Well, hardly ever…
‘Look,’ Jim says, wearily. ‘This girl’s quite nice, she happens to like ballet, she quite likes me and she wants me to go. Since when is it a crime for a man to indulge in some culture anyway, and what is this? The Spanish Inquisition?’
‘No, it’s just, it’s quite girlfriendy, going to the ballet just because “she likes it”.’ I poke his arm playfully. ‘Selflessness, I’d say, is the first sign of true love.’
Vicky folds her arms industriously.
‘Annalisa won’t be best pleased,’ she chips in.
Annalisa is that rare thing: a holiday fling that goes on being a holiday fling. Jim met her in Rimini on a lads’ holiday a few years ago and they’ve had an ‘understanding’ (basically to be each other’s bit of no-strings fun when he visits Italy or she visits London) ever since.
‘Give it a rest will you.’ Jim sinks back in his chair. ‘Annalisa wouldn’t care and anyway, Claire’s a lovely girl but she doesn’t want anything serious anymore than I do. You two are just jealous. I’ve got a date, I’m going somewhere interesting. Meanwhile, you’re in this rubbish pub talking about makeup and periods. Probably.’
This is what we do, us lot, wind each other up. Sometimes I forget I’ve had sex with Jim. I forget he has seen me naked in all sorts of compromising positions. I don’t remember how he’s caressed my boobs, taken baths with me and commented on my rather relaxed upkeep of hair removal. It’s like we are experts at compartmentalization. When we’re having sex, we’re tender and intimate. When we’re not, we’re mates. That’s all, nothing more, nothing less. Just mates.
I look at Jim.
‘So, what are you wearing for your “hot date”?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean when are you getting changed, you know, into your going-out clothes?’
Jim examines his attire. Then looks at Vicky. He actually looks a bit hurt. A little part of me wants to give him a hug.
‘This is it,’ he says. ‘This is what I’m wearing.’
‘You are kidding,’ I say. Vicky erupts, spraying scampi fries everywhere. ‘This is the ballet, Jim. You’ll get chucked out looking like that.’
‘Like what? What’s the matter with me?’
‘Like an Austin Powers/raver cross breed?’
‘Aw, give over Tess. He looks alright, don’t you Jimbo?’ Vicky puts an arm around him, trying not to laugh.
Jim looks at me.
‘What?’ he says, a smile curling at the sides of his mouth. ‘It’s a bloody good jacket this, I’ll have you know. It’s Ellesse, not your Top Man bollocks. Top notch.’
Vicky and I are pissing ourselves now. Jim’s had that jacket since about 1991. Which was about the time Ellesse was last cool.
‘Where’s your whistle and your acid tabs?’ I joke. ‘And I bet it’s still got that fag burn in the back.’
Jim sticks his bottom lip out in a mock show of hurt.
‘Come ’ere, I’m only kidding,’ I say, getting his head and putting it into an affectionate head-lock. ‘You look cool. Honestly. You really do. Kind of…what would I say? Sports casual with a seventies twist.’
We all laugh but the fact is, he does look cool, in a Jim-eclectic kind of a way. It’s a mish-mash of decades, what with the Ellesse jacket, the seventies tank top and cords, but there’s something attractive about a man who doesn’t try too hard and Jim’s certainly not guilty of that. In fact Jim doesn’t so much ‘do’ fashion as happen upon it when by the laws of probability means he does, occasionally, pull something OK out of his wardrobe.
Jim stands up, zips up his jacket and announces he’s going. ‘Well, thank you, Fashion Police,’ he says. ‘But I’m now going to get myself some refined company. A woman who knows how to conduct herself, a woman who appreciates cutting-edge style when she sees it.’
Kylie’s ‘Spinning Around’ comes onto the jukebox. Jim stands up and shimmies to the bar, his small bottom wiggling.
‘Nice moves, Ashcroft!’ I shout after him. ‘The girl won’t be able to resist!’
With this, he downs the rest of his pint, puts his glass on the bar, flashes us a V-sign and dashes out of the door. I watch him as he goes, bouncing along the pavement on his Reebok Classics, hands in pockets, head down.
When I turn back, Vicky’s staring at me.
‘What?’
‘You’re smiling,’ she says.
‘Am I?’
‘Yeah, you’re really smiling.’
Here we go again.
A night out with Vicky is a bit like that film Groundhog Day. From the moment I walk in to the moment she disappears into the night only just catching the last train to Beckenham by the skin of her teeth, I know exactly what’s coming: as many bottles of house red as we can fit in and the obligatory ‘but-you-are-really-secretly-in-love-with-Jim,
