Читать книгу How To Lose Weight And Alienate People - Ollie Quain - Страница 9

I open the door to the flat, automatically sling my keys in the glass fish bowl on the hall table and hang my leather jacket on the back of the door. I have been trained to do this by my flatmate, Adele, who has a zero-tolerance policy to household mess. For example, dirty clothes have to be washed, transferred to the dryer and put back in the wardrobe in quick succession – not left to ‘linger unnecessarily’ on the radiator. Smoking is strictly prohibited (even on the patio) and the fridge is constantly monitored for decaying comestibles. The chances of a bio-yogurt drifting past its best-before date are very slim indeed. Adele was only half joking when she once said to me, ‘Those bacteria may be friendly now, Vivian, but who knows when they might turn?’

A lot of people would find Adele’s idiosyncrasies a nightmare to live with but I am not really in a position to complain. I am lucky to be living in such a nice apartment in Bayswater, with a big clothes cupboard and the added bonus of a flatmate who travels abroad whenever she has time off. For some unfathomable reason Adele is never happier then when she is tramping through some Third World country under a spine-crunching backpack. I don’t see the point of travelling to far flung places myself, unless it’s to stock up on hardcore downers and speed-based diet pills, or to catch dysentery – the ultimate detox – then all the hassle would be worth it. Anyway, she bought this flat after she’d quit the drama college we were both at to become some sort of money broker. I was shocked when she told me she was giving up her dream of being on stage, and remember asking, ‘Do you think working in the City will be that rewarding?’ The answer turned out to be ‘yes’. Last year, her basic income (she wouldn’t tell me her bonus) was two hundred grand. She has an extensive shares portfolio, two sports cars, a buy-to-let in the Docklands and this place, which – after the installation of a hi-tech new kitchen – has been valued by a number of local agents at just over a million.

I feel like a bit of a fraud for living here. I always avoid saying hello to the upstairs neighbours – a German couple with their own architectural practice – and if I ever see them I pretend to be deep in conversation on my mobile. Stupid really, what are they going to do? Drag me into the upper maisonette and interrogate me using a Philippe Starck brushed-steel anglepoise lamp until I admit Adele lets me live here for a minimal rent? One thing is for sure, without her generosity I would be living in a much lesser flat somewhere a lot further west … like Wales. So, what does she get in return? Well, someone to stand by her, I suppose. Or more specifically, someone who is on standby 24/7 with a box of man-size Kleenex to mop up her tears. They fall quite often. Adele may have her working life neatly squared off, but her love life is a pentagram of doom.

I pick up an ASOS package off the hall table. It should contain five vests, four grey marl and one nude, plus two pairs of skinny-leg trousers, one black, one grey. It is the second ASOS parcel to arrive this week.

I can hear Luke in the kitchen, opening then banging cupboards shut, still trying to work out where things are. I have been letting him stay here whilst Adele is trekking across the Himalayas with her latest boyfriend, James. They met in Asia doing voluntary work at a wildlife sanctuary for endangered species. She has already hit a new record with him: they’ve been together since the end of last year and she hasn’t cried once.

‘You’re back early,’ shouts Luke.

‘Yes, I am,’ I shout back. ‘Five hours and thirty-three minutes earlier than I should be, if you need the exact timings for your log book.’

‘Thanks, I’ll jot those figures down.’

I hear him laugh as I walk into the lounge. The usual organised debris that appears whenever Luke is within a ten-metre radius is all present and correct. A half-drunk two-litre bottle of Dr Pepper, headphones, laptop logged onto beatport.com and back copies of dance music magazines are lined up on Adele’s African chest, which doubles up as a coffee table. In a pile on the floor next to it are his hooded grey sweatshirt, gaffer-taped work boots, thick mountain socks and a plastic bag from an electrical wholesaler. It’s full of electrical leads.

‘Luke!’ I yell. ‘Why have you bought more cables?’

‘Because I need them.’

‘Christ, how could you? Your bedroom floor already looks like the snake pit in Indiana Jones. By the way, Adele gets back tomorrow so we need to clean up this mess. It’s a tip in here.’

I sit down on the sofa and notice a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on the floor the other side of the arm rest. Luke must have bought a snack from there at teatime on his way home from the building site. I peer inside the container at the gnawed, withered drumsticks and find myself thinking about Angelina Jolie’s leg poking out of her dress at that Oscar ceremony …

‘This isn’t a tip,’ says Luke, walking into the lounge holding a plate of more food. ‘Mine and Wozza’s place is a tip. What you’re looking at is just surface rubbish, which admittedly has shock value, I’ll give you that. But it’s easy to get rid of. Although, I still can’t find the bin in there.’ He nods towards the kitchen.

I smile. To be fair, Adele’s recently installed kitchen is a complex set-up. You feel pressurised cooking in there … it’s like competing in an episode of The Cube. Fortunately, that – preparing and assembling dishes or game shows – is not something I like to get involved in very often.

Luke sits down next to me and puts his dinner on the leather chest. He has made himself a grilled lamb chop with salad and potatoes.

I find Luke’s approach to diet interesting but baffling. On the one hand, he is quite content chomping his way through the types of dishes laid out in front of the obese person on the first episode of The Biggest Loser to serve as a reality check. On the other, he could name most superfoods (probably not the goji berry, though), and more often that not always has his five-a-day. He eats what he wants, when he wants it. His approach to exercise is the same. He doesn’t bother with a gym schedule, but if he fancies some fresh air he goes for a run. Not that he needs to burn anything off; there is no ‘excess’ on him. The combination of doing manual labour and a ridiculously high metabolic rate keeps his body hard and angular. It’s like sleeping next to a bicycle.

‘So why did you sack off the rest of your shift?’ he asks, leaning over to give me a kiss. Then he clocks my blackening eye and leaps back. ‘Jeeeeeeeeeesus, who the fuck did that? I’ll kill them!’

I burst out laughing. Luke is the least confrontational person I have ever met. If he found a spider in the bathroom he would negotiate with it to leave as quietly as possible and put in a polite request that any flamboyant scuttling is kept to a minimum.

‘It was an accident,’ I explain. ‘A couple of the customers had a run-in; I tried to split it up and got whacked by mistake. It looks a lot more painful than it is.’

‘Ouch.’ He peers at the bruise. ‘That’s a shiner. Why didn’t you call me when it happened?’

‘Because I was flat out on the floor.’

‘Afterwards, I mean. I could have come to get you.’ He picks up his fork and motions at me to try some of his meal, but I pull a face and shake my head. This is our standard procedure. ‘You might have got delayed concussion on the way home and passed out on the pavement.’

‘Well, I didn’t, did I? I’m here.’

‘You never phone me in a crisis.’

‘That’s because in the year I have known you there hasn’t been a crisis to report. It’s not as if one has occurred and I have made a point of not informing you. Besides, this wasn’t a crisis it was a drama.’

His face crumples slightly. It always does when I have a verbal jab at him. First his forehead creases, then his cheekbones sink and his mouth turns at the corners.

‘At least, let me get you some ice,’ he says.

‘No way, I want it to look really bad for tomorrow. I may be able to elicit some sympathy at my audition and get a call-back because they feel sorry for me. Desperate times call for desperate measures.’

‘Don’t be stupid, you’ll get a call-back because you’re talented not because you’re injured.’

‘Luke!’ I nudge him on the leg. ‘What have I told you about being overly supportive of my non-existent career?’

‘Sorry, I’m afraid it’s in my genes. Despite inventing the drinking game, Show us your rack, Sheila! …’ He smiles pointedly at me, knowing full well it winds me up when he uses Australian slang. ‘… us Aussies are extremely sensitive. It’s a fact.’

But I smile back at him, because here’s the thing. Despite the obsessive timekeeping, low-level buzz of neediness and his place of birth … Luke is hot. If he was in a boy band, he’d be the tall one at the back who never gets to sing lead vocal but is on hand to do some decent break-dancing moves and point at the fans a lot. He was born in the eighties, at the nineties end … so when he was in a cot, I was in a bunk, not a grown-up bed. He would be even hotter if he cut his hair, used some basic grooming products on his skin to protect it against the elements, and wore some better clothes. I don’t mean expensive, but just something that fitted properly, with possibly a hint of tailoring or edginess. Just because he has an athletic physique, doesn’t mean that sweatshirts should be the only option. I don’t badger him about this sort of thing, though, because I wouldn’t expect him to change himself for me, as it’s not as if I would change myself for him. I think that’s why it’s lasted twelve months. We’re together, but there isn’t any grand plan for us; we’re having a laugh. When we stop having a laugh we’ll go our separate ways.

‘Did you know the person who clobbered you?’ he asks, as he chews.

‘Kind of. It was Maximilian Fry – the actor.’

‘Maximilian Fry?’ He repeats his name out of surprise, not because he is remotely impressed.

‘Uh-huh. He was trying to have a pop at Clint Parks.’

‘Who’s that?’ Luke doesn’t look at any of the tabloids. He buys the Guardian and reads it on the building site at lunchtime.

‘The gossip columnist on News Today. As soon as Maximilian saw him leave the Gents he pelted towards him, I jumped in the middle and pow … he thumped me.’

‘So did the cops pitch up and bundle him into the back of a police van?’

‘God, no. His PR rep arrived within minutes and ushered him through the fire exit into the back seat of an air-conditioned people carrier.’ I had missed all of this, though, because I had to go and look after Tabitha who was upset about seeing me get hurt. ‘Have you fed Monday?’

The second I say that, my cat’s big orange face appears in the doorway. He does one of his mammoth over-exaggerated yawns (similar to how a cobra dislocates its jaw to swallow a whole deer), and then blinks slowly as he scans the room, assessing the current situation. Monday has got blinking down to a fine art. He can say so much simply by shutting his eyes and opening them again. If he is feeling particularly narked he also raises his eyebrows. For example, if someone offers him fish. He can’t stomach seafood.

Luke nods. ‘Yeah, he’s been fed, but I think he may have been upstairs for a snack first because he smelt of bratwurst. Anyway, I got him some chook from that butcher’s round the corner. You know, the posh one where they pride themselves on the non-stressful conditions the animals are reared in? Apparently, this particular bird was allowed to hang around in the barn all day wearing his dressing gown and playing the most recent Grand Theft Auto on the Xbox. Wasn’t it, little mate?’ He gives Monday a thumbs-up. Monday pads over to him and rubs his head on Luke’s shin.

Luke adores Monday and Monday seems to like Luke a lot too, which is saying something as in the eleven years since I collected him from the Cat’s Protection League he has found fault with most of the men I’ve been with. Yes, I’m aware that the words, ‘Men I’ve Been With’ aren’t likely to inspire Danielle Steel’s next romantic bestseller, but it’s the closest I can get to describing the connection I make with members of the opposite sex. I am with them, and then I am not. Not in the way that Adele is. She is an emotional car crash. I’ve never even come close to having a minor prang let alone careered into a major pile-up. This is because I am always in the driving seat and plan exactly where I am going. Adele instantly hands over the keys and never bothers with GPS.

‘That Fry bloke … was he on speedo?’

I make a face at Luke for using another annoying Aussie-ism. ‘Speedo’ is what he calls cocaine … because it speeds up time.

‘No, he’s just come out of rehab.’

‘But he managed to apologise for hitting you?’ asks Luke.

‘Nah …’ I shrug my shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t have expected him to.’

He laughs. ‘Oh right, is that one of the rules of joining a private members’ club, then? You have to behave as rudely as possible at all times? I would sign up myself but I may only be able to manage “faintly offensive” during opening hours. “Wholly insulting” could take some practice.’ Then he mutters to himself, ‘What a pretentious wanker.’

This is classic Luke. Maybe it’s because he grew up on the beach in Sydney where life was one long fun-packed family barbi, but he is so grounded. He is entirely unaffected by everything that everyone else I know is affected by. He doesn’t concern himself with what people do, how they live or what they look like. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks about what he is doing either, as long as he is content within himself and sticks to his plan. Case in point, he graduated from university in Australia with a first-class degree, and then worked for five years in an ultra-dull-sounding recruitment job, just so he could save up for a deposit on a property in Sydney to keep as an investment for the future. Then he travelled over here to fulfil his ultimate dream: becoming a DJ. Not because he eventually wants to be the idolised centrepiece of wild parties where the crowd scream his name and supermodels nosh him off behind the decks – which I thought was the whole point of deejaying – but because he is genuinely into the music and wants to ‘share’ this passion. It goes without saying that when we very first met, I warned him that his plan was unlikely to work out. After all, for nearly two decades it has been mandatory for every bloke under thirty inhabiting the hipper UK towns to know how to mix, run club nights and produce their own tunes on set-ups in their bedroom. Everyone is a DJ, or a promoter, or a producer; other typically young male-dominated industries have suffered as an effect. You can’t get a decent plumber for love nor money over Hackney way. Anyway, Luke ignored what I said, found work on a building site so he had a reliable job that required no overtime and then set about finding some gigs.

To be fair, he has managed to land a few. Mainly through his flatmate, Warren, who knows everyone in Clubland and also throws the odd party himself at an underground venue in South London. (That’s underground as in literally below street level, not underground as in madly cool.) But Luke always has to play the thankless slot at the very beginning of the evening when punters are thin on the ground. It’s the bar staff turning up for their shift who tend to congratulate him on his set. This does not bother him in the slightest; he’s thrilled to be part of the environment. For me this would be like meeting someone for a drink at Shoreditch House who enjoyed full membership all year round, whilst you were still waiting for your application to be processed and approved. Which I am. Small acorns have grown into large oaks since I’ve been on their sodding waiting list. Roughly, twice a year I get to the top and am offered a contract, but I can’t afford the fee because I will have just spent/be planning to spend an eye-watering amount of euros at the Ibiza opening/closing parties. So, I go back to the bottom.

‘Are you hyped for Saturday night, then?’ asks Luke, as he puts his knife and fork together and pushes his plate away. He hasn’t eaten all his potatoes.

‘That depends on what we’re doing.’

‘We’re celebrating your birthday.’

‘Yeah, I know. But how?’

‘It’s a surprise,’ says Luke, then he winks at Monday. ‘Isn’t it, little mate?’

Monday blinks at him and kneads the carpet with his two pristinely white front paws.

‘A surprise …’ I repeat.

‘Yeah, a surprise!’

‘Putting an inflection on the end of the word doesn’t make it sound more appealing.’

‘Everyone likes surprises,’ Luke argues.

Not me. I don’t even put my MP3 player on ‘shuffle’. In fact, I like surprises even less than birthdays. Combined? No, thanks.

‘I’d prefer to know where we are going, Luke.’

His face crumples slightly but he pulls it back. ‘And the award for most ungrateful reaction to the news that someone has gone to the trouble of organising a nice treat goes to … Vivian Ward! Jesus, you can be such a witch sometimes. You’ll have a great time, I promise, not that you deserve it,’ he says, and pulls off his T-shirt over his head. ‘Now, I suggest you make some amends by getting your kit off.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because I want to have some of that really bad nookie we’re so good at.’ He reaches into his pocket, fishes out a condom and Frisbees it into my lap.

‘Ok-aaaaay.’ I pick up the sealed plastic pouch faux-wearily and shove the trunk with my foot to get the leftover potatoes out of my line of vision. One of them has a large blob of mayonnaise next to it. ‘But please, let’s make sure it is a whole different level of unsatisfactory this time. Dull, perfunctory humping only. Do you mind if we have the TV on in the background?’

‘Nope, we’ll switch it on when we’ve finished … then we’ve got something to look forward to,’ says Luke, dexterously unbuckling his belt and jeans with his left hand. With the right he throws his T-shirt towards the doorway where it drops on Monday’s head, making him look like a furry-legged ghost. ‘Sorry, little mate, this is not for your eyes.’

I wriggle out of my skinny-leg trousers, which are almost identical to the ones that arrived today, and lie back on the sofa. ‘Let’s press on. Try to keep it under five minutes, yeah? Then we can actually enjoy what’s left of the evening.’

‘Got it.’ His jeans come off.

And then so are we. No awkwardness, no hesitation, no more admittedly fairly laboured sarcastic build-up, which I am well aware is only funny if you are us, just no-holds-barred, relentless shagging accompanied by some slightly feral grabbing, licking, sucking, biting and maybe a bit of light (non-scab forming) scratching. This is certainly not the Calvin Klein approved, black-and-white lurve-making that goes on in advertisement for Eternity. It’s full-on fucking; the purely-for-pleasure stuff my mother would warn me against as a child. Corinthians Chapter 6 Verse 18; Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. There is no gentle whispering or delicate contemplation, just ecstatic yowling and frenzied gulps for breath. It’s been like this since the moment I met Luke; one knock-out session after another. The sort you might want to record for posterity … so on occasion, we have. When I watch the footage back, I am always amused – and rather impressed – by the assorted surfaces we manage to utilise.

Tonight, we end up on the new island unit in the kitchen, possibly the most uncomfortable material in the flat – no, Europe – but Luke likes it. Probably so he can give me a knowing smile whenever Adele is using it to assemble one of her authentic ethnic dishes, as if to say, We both know it’s not just cumin seeds that have been pummelled up there … It’s good. Really good … and when it’s over, we stay sprawled on the granite, the endorphins that are pelting round our bodies easing the pain in Luke’s spine and my cruciate ligaments. That’s when I look across at him – his unkempt hair in an (entirely unintentionally) sexy mess – and at that very moment I think about what a nice addition he is to my life right now.

Then I look over to the fridge and stare at the photograph stuck to the refrigerator of Adele and James grinning manically as they cradle an orphaned baby orang-utan in the Bornean rainforest. It reminds me that I must must must remember to remove her stone-coloured Max Mara tank top from its dry-cleaning cellophane, unpin the yellow ticket from the care label and replace it in her wardrobe. Ditto her LnA white V-neck tee. And grey Equipment shirt. (Adele’s closet is a haven of high-quality basics that I like to borrow – without asking – on a regular basis.) I also need to sweep up the fag butts on the patio, buy some Pantene shampoo and conditioner to put in the shower so she doesn’t think I’ve been caning her Aveda Colour Conserve, and then I need t—

‘Vivian?’

‘Mmmm?’ I twist to face Luke. ‘Christ!’ His eyes are one centimetre away from mine. ‘You gave me a shock.’

‘Sorry.’ He pulls back a little awkwardly. ‘I was figuring out whether I should talk to you about something. Something quite … serious.’

‘Serious? Like what? You’ve acquired an STD …’

‘Ha! No, nothing like that.’

‘You’ve got a wife back home in Australia and she drives a “yoot”…’ I smile.

‘I don’t.’

‘You’ve been to prison?’

‘Would that be a turn-on?’

‘Possibly, if it was an act of selflessness that got you sent down – like Wentworth Miller in Prison Break. But if it was manslaught—’

He interrupts me. ‘What are your feelings about reproduction?’

‘Reprod …’ I tail off.

‘… uction. Reproduction.’ He visibly relaxes as he says the word a second time and stares directly at me.

I tense and look away. ‘The heavy wooden French furniture, you mean?’

‘Not that, Vivian. Human reproduction, as in the creation of another being. It’s something that I’ve been meaning to get your thoughts on for a while,’ he says, as if he were casually requesting my opinion on which actor has been the most convincing James Bond. ‘Well, not a while as in ages and ages, we’ve only been together for a year so it would be pretty scary if I had been thinking about it for too long. Don’t panic, I’m not some sort of psycho-sperminator who’s simply been biding his time for the right moment to impregnate you.’ Definitely not Pierce Brosnan – too self-conscious. Or Timothy Dalton – too self-righteous. ‘And even though I said it was a “serious” subject, it doesn’t mean I “seriously” want us to think about doing it right now, but it would be good to know your feelings about the subject, generally.’ I know this is controversial but I wasn’t mad about Sean Connery – too hairy, and I can’t even remember the name of the actor in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. George someone? ‘I can tell you’re a bit surprised, but I’ve surprised myself by even wanting to approach the whole issue. I certainly didn’t think I’d be asking you about it tonight, but …’ Lazenby! George Lazenby, that was it. As for Daniel Craig – way too shaggable. Distractingly so, it’s impossible to concentrate on the plot. ‘… sometimes it’s hard to plan when you’re going to talk about the things in life that need the most planning, and you don’t get something that needs more planning than a … baby.’

ROGER MOORE! There’s your answer. He was the best 007. Yes, he was cheesy, but I like cheese. (The sentiment not the dairy product.) Plus, he made my favourite movie of the entire franchise …

Luke shakes his head at me. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’

‘Moonraker.’