nice accents. I was with the band: it was great. He wasn’t exactly the most romantic character on the planet, but I didn’t care; here I was, Melanie Pepper, twenty-six and watching minor pop-stars throw up in the corner of filthy nightclubs. Life was cool.
More than that, though, I absolutely adored him. I loved his cool long floppy hair, and his sad brown puppy eyes, and was constantly trying to get him to notice me. I would jump up and down trying to reach him, and he would give me his big lazy grin and check out who else was in on the conversation. Occasionally he would indulge me with his attention, and I would be like one of those pathetically affectionate little dogs they’re always rescuing on programmes about the RSPCA. Other times he’d flirt with women for ages and I would be distraught. In short, he was not that good a boyfriend, no doubt about it. But in his leather trousers … well, you know, a girl is a girl, and leather trousers and pop-star friends are leather trousers and pop-star friends, so of course I did what the cool girls should NEVER do, which is fall in love with the cool boys. It blows the whole thing.
Still, he’d been coming round. I’d notice the occasional look of tenderness on his face. Or he’d phone me, for no reason. Or come home early from a gig. He was coming round, I could sense it. He loved me. He even passed the ‘Would you mind just picking me up some Tampax on the way over?’ test. So I was just about to suggest that we … possibly … think about moving in together – not seriously or anything, just a casual moving-in thing because, after all, all that toothbrush expense just didn’t seem worth it, ha ha – when he vanished. Off the face of the earth.
I waited for him to call one weekend and he never did. It was that simple. Assuming it was an X-Files type incident and could have nothing to do with me, I let twenty-four hours go by before I finally phoned his flatmate, Charlie, who lived in Fulham. Charlie wasn’t best pleased to have to put up with Alex’s shit, and too posh to be kind. He informed me wearily that Alex had gone to the States to find himself, and was sorry he hadn’t told me but it seemed easier that way.
Not even a desultory note! Alex had dumped me by moving continents and leaving a message with a laconic friend!
For weeks I was too strung out even to cry. It felt like someone had scooped out my insides with a cold spoon. Fran was wonderful then; I’d never known anyone with a fuller range of colourful epithets and hexes. She spat venom for me; I sat in corners and rocked myself. I felt embarrassed just walking down to the shops for more crisps, with the sheer humiliation I felt must be written all over my face. It was pain like I’d never known, worse even than when I got the Spangles papers stuck up my nose (I was four; I’m not weird or anything).
As the months passed, everything had settled to the occasional dull ache, which I had most recently attempted to assuage with the guest now smacking his lips over the chocolate mini rolls as if they were caviar.
‘OK,’ said Fran. ‘I’m just going to take this little piece of junk mail and put it where it belongs …’
I snatched it out of her hand.
‘Come on, Mel. This is low-life trash bastard post. In fact, if you like, I’ll even give you the honour of setting fire to it.’
‘Hey, guys, what’s going on?’ said Nicholas the Intuitive, through a mouthful of chocolate mush. Apparently, if he didn’t get 15,000 calories a day he’d die.
I opened my eyes.
‘Look, I really don’t want to be rude, but would you just GO AWAY!’ I burst out, but I couldn’t hold the moment. ‘Ehm, it’s just that Fran and I have this REALLY IMPORTANT THING to do that we’ve been planning for ages …’
‘Yeah, it’s called the Getting Away From Nicholas Thing,’ said Fran, not quite under her breath.
‘Sure, hey, not a problem, babe. How about I pick you up tonight at seven and we go for a ludicrously expensive dinner at my client’s expense? Chaw chaw chaw!’
‘Unfortunately this THING that Mel and I have to do lasts for AGES,’ said Fran. ‘So sorry. But you have to go. NOW.’
‘Hey, cool your jets. No one ever said that Nicholas Snodley couldn’t take a hint.’
I suddenly ran to the other side of the room and started de-alphabetizing Linda’s CDs in case he tried to give me a kiss. Linda’s CDs: The Greatest Love Songs Ever – One, The Greatest Love Songs Ever – Two and, for a bit of variety, The Greatest Love Songs in the World – Ever! And some dolphin noises.
‘Mel, babe, I’ll ring you soon, huh? About the Brian May Appreciation bash?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘BYE.’
He went for playing it cool: ‘Yeah, right. What’s your number again?’
I meant to give him the wrong number, but in my confused emotional state got mixed up and accidentally gave him the right one.
‘Ciao then, babes,’ he sleazed, and, bending under the doorframe, he was gone. I swear I could hear the echoing ‘chaw chaw chaw’ down the corridor in his wake.
Out of the frying pan, I thought to myself, picking up the postcard again. I moved back and collapsed on the sofa next to Fran, leaning my head on her shoulder.
‘Please, never do the Nicholas thing again,’ she said.
‘But it’s so much fun for you.’
‘Mel, you know I’d rather grate myself than see you go anywhere near that eight-foot pole of slime.’
I held up the postcard weakly. ‘I missed him so much.’
‘I know you did.’
‘I still do.’
‘I know you do. But what kind of man would do what he did to you without being a total bastard?’
‘I don’t know. Boys are weird.’
‘Yes, they are. All of them. And they think we’re weird. But some of them are nice-weird and some of them are not. Think of Alex as an Amanda of the boy world. He made you feel exactly the same way as that snotty cow did when she took up with all those nobs and dropped you like a stone.’
‘And I still see her.’
Fran sighed. ‘And she makes you miserable. Which means you probably won’t listen to a word I say.’
‘Probably not.’
‘OK, well, fuck that for sisterly advice then. Any mini rolls left?’
We regarded the debris of tinfoil strewn across the floor.
‘That boy frightens me,’ murmured Fran.
I lay back on the sofa, groaning. ‘Oh God. First Fraser, then Nicholas, and now this. I hope karma isn’t true.’ A thought struck me: ‘You don’t think Amanda’s marrying Fraser just to fuck me off, do you?’
‘Probably,’ said Fran, stretching lazily and putting the TV on. ‘Don’t worry. If Alex is coming back, maybe she’ll marry him instead.’
Neither prospect filled me with glee.
