Between Us, page 3
‘Those are stairs you descend down for dinner,’ Gina said, as they all oohed and aahed.
‘And you can. Dinner at seven p.m. With canapes in the drawing room first,’ Joe said, ushering them onwards. The deal was, the men cooked tonight, the women tomorrow. It was rather cheesy to split the teams this way, but no one could think of a different rationale.
They found Dev and Anita on stools at the bar. The room was done out with a crystal chandelier, noisy flock wallpaper and a neon sign on the wall that read IT’S MIDDAY SOMEWHERE. It also had a music system, evidently.
Dev jumped down at sight of them. ‘GIRLS! Have you seen! We’ve got fuckin’ HENS!’ he shouted, doing fist pulls in time with crotch thrusts to the song, facial expression set in an underbite.
‘Are you planning on having sex with them?’ Roisin said.
Dev continued his gyrations, shouting, ‘ALSO DUCKS!’ while doing a perturbing ass-slapping mime.
His fiancée, Anita, abandoned what looked like a fishbowl G&T with juniper berries and located the stereo, reducing Suede to a level where they could communicate.
‘WHADDYATHINK?’ Dev said, in the new quiet, throwing his arms wide. ‘Some Bruce Wayne wild shit, no?!’
‘Awful, dismal, shabby,’ Meredith said. ‘Very threadbare, isn’t it?’
‘Ask for your money back,’ Gina agreed. ‘So dark! Needs some of those Velux skylights putting in.’
‘Honestly, Dev,’ Roisin said, free to be sincere now the British part was covered, ‘out of this world. We don’t deserve you, or this.’
‘No one else I’d rather have here.’ He beamed, gathering them all at once in large arms. Anita joined in.
‘Wait until you see how many dresses I’ve brought,’ she said, voice muffled.
‘We practically needed a trailer,’ Dev said.
The voluptuous Anita was a make-up artist – speciality, shades for Asian skin tones – with a huge Instagram following; she and Dev had met exchanging DMs.
The group loved Anita, having got off to a shaky start when she turned up post-fame and pre-rehab. It was a period when they were at maximum suspicion of New Dev Pals and actively trying to rid him of druggy parasites. Being a man who made friends with such ease and openness was terrible for an addict with a recognisable face.
Thus, Dev’s old guard were initially near certain she was dating the infamous Dev Doshi for what the kids called clout. In fact, she was solid gold and good for him – someone as ebullient as Dev, without the hyperactive edge. She’d stuck by him getting clean and kept him out of places where he might meet unhelpful influences.
They were living in rented digs while they had the family house of their dreams built in Alderley Edge.
When Dev said he’d proposed a few months back, they were able to offer a full-throated and wholehearted HOORAH.
‘Oh my life! And finally, it’s the gentleman con artist, Mr Staff WiFi!’ Joe said, having lifted a swag of drape to peer out of the window.
4
‘Staff WiFi’ was one of Joe’s more recent nicknames for Matt. Whenever they were in a venue with crap coverage on public WiFi, Matt would be merrily messaging away. When asked how come it was possible, he would shrug oh, I got the password for staff WiFi, doing a hand flap in the direction of front of house.
There was absolutely no reason why a customer who wanted the staff password should get it, other than the fact the customer looked like a cowboy as imagined by Cosmopolitan.
They clustered around the window to see Matt striding up the hill towards them in a Crombie coat, large boots with yellow laces (half unlaced), a canvas duffle bag slung over his shoulder. He’d have a look of a man out of time, who’d clambered through a torn rift in space, apart from the fact he had a pair of headphones clamped round his ears.
‘Why’s he on foot?’ Meredith said.
‘Look at this absolute plum,’ Joe chortled. ‘Like he’s auditioning for the next Doctor Who.’
‘He was getting an airport taxi. He’s been in Portugal with …’ Roisin, in vain, ransacked her mind for the name. ‘Cassie?’ She held her hands out in hopeful prayer, teeth gritted.
‘Hah, Cassie is LONG gone,’ Meredith snorted. ‘You’re so April-May.’ She tutted. ‘This was … does it begin with an L …’
The trouble was they didn’t file Matt’s glamorous girl pals by names so much as salient detail for the post-fact analysis.
They were like Friends episode titles. The One Whose Grandad Invented Striped Toothpaste. The One Who Kept A Chinchilla Called Shamone. The One Who Naked Video-Called Him At Three A.M.
‘Ruby,’ Gina supplied, in a calm yet smaller voice.
‘Ruby! Of course,’ Meredith said. ‘The … hot yoga enthusiast. Or maybe that was the other one.’
Conversation moved abruptly to who was going to let Matt in. There was often this shift in tone, in unspoken deference to Gina’s feelings.
Gina’s love for Matt was as powerful and constant as it was unrequited. The group stepped around it delicately while simultaneously not acknowledging its existence. Every so often, they’d try to persuade each other, unconvincingly, that it was long past.
There was nothing to be done. Matt was very fond of Gina. No matter who Gina got involved with – and there was no shortage of men falling at her Barbie-sized feet – they could tell she still yearned fruitlessly for him throughout.
It’s toxic hope, isn’t it? Meredith had said. Who knew there was such a thing.
His carousel of meaningless flings was like artillery fire to Gina’s heart. Yet equally, they dreaded the day when Matt met The One, as it would hurt even worse.
Dev darted off to intercept Matt. After a minute, he presented a similarly awestruck guest.
‘This is a bit of alright, eh?! Dev, you’ve outdone yourself. Hello, everyone.’
‘The ensemble is complete! It’s like Peter’s Friends but with even worse people,’ Joe said. ‘Wait, what is going on with your face?’
At closer range, it seemed Matt, sharp haircut and otherwise clean shaven, was sporting a thin pencil moustache. Matt put his fingers to his top lip.
‘Is it bad? Ruby told me it looked good.’
‘Ruby is clearly working for your enemies, sorry to say,’ Joe said.
‘Why have you walked here?’ Gina asked.
‘I asked the taxi driver to drop me off when we got closer. Looked too nice to drive through. I wanted to take it all in.’
‘What a good idea. I might have thought of it if I wasn’t so lazy,’ Meredith said.
‘We did stop the car briefly, which is kind of the same.’ Roisin said. ‘Lisbon good?’
‘Lovely. Sunny. Though the hotel gym was below par. Had to queue for the rowing machine. It was quite dehumanising.’
‘Who goes to the gym on holiday?’ Roisin said.
‘Now you know,’ Joe said.
‘Given Matt’s here – a toast!’ Dev said.
Anita had clearly been primed for this moment, already behind the bar and easing a cork from a bottle of champagne, slopping it into a row of glasses. Dev had a cloudy kombucha.
‘To THE BRIAN CLUB!’ Dev declared, once they were handed out. They knocked flutes and echoed him, saying, thebrianclub! while laughing, and in a split second, Roisin understood what this weekend was really about.
She’d been so busy assessing her and Joe’s drift, she hadn’t spotted the group possibly becoming looser at the seams, too.
5
The Brian Club title hadn’t been used in a long while, though it remained the name of their WhatsApp group.
It was based on a notorious incident a decade ago, not long after they all met, while working at Waterstones Deansgate. Brian was a colossal arsehole who used to busybody around the shop most days, being obnoxiously difficult and making specious complaints.
One day, after a fight with manager Dev over a mysteriously bespoiled tome about a cricketing legend, Brian dragged one of the shop stepladders into the middle of the Biography & True Stories section. Upon clambering aloft, Brian pointed – Invasion of the Bodysnatchers style, with staring eyes and contorted expression – at Dev.
‘TWAT!’ he shrieked, in the tone usually reserved for ‘fire!’, bringing many customers to a dead silent halt.
Then, Brian’s eyes alighted on Roisin nearby. ‘ANOTHER TWAT!’
‘Twat, twat, twat,’ he narrated, jabbing fingers in turn at a startled Meredith, Gina and Matt, who had rushed in to see what the commotion was about.
A Saturday part-timer called Lia had also wandered into view and Brian’s gimlet gaze fell upon her next.
‘You’re alright,’ he conceded, to everyone’s surprise.
Then Brian reeled theatrically at the sight of Joe, who was entering stage left with a stack of hardbacks about Edmund Hillary.
Brian drew breath, extended a trembling forefinger and said, ‘… A CUNT!’
Roisin had wondered why Dev didn’t invite more people to Benbarrow Hall – they certainly had the space – and now she knew it was to define who belonged. He was a benevolent patriarch, bringing the wayward sons and daughters together, not letting them forget about the importance of family ties.
‘You know, I’m on the fence about the moustache,’ Roisin said, looking at Matt appraisingly, after half a flute of Moët. ‘It’s strangely compelling. You look like the RAF rotter in one tattered photo found hidden in a bureau drawer during a house clearance, who turns out in a family scandal to be the real grandfather.’
‘Yes! RAF Rotter Sex Grandpa was the look I was going for! Thanks, Rosh,’ Matt said.
Joe rolled his eyes.
‘Seeing Ruby again, then?’ Gina asked, and everyone’s shoulders tensed.
‘Therein lies an incredible story. “Ruby” basically catfished me! But it was a reverse catfish.’
‘What’s a reverse catfish?’
‘A catfish is when someone’s hiding behind a different identity to their actual one, right? And their actual one tends to be a nasty shock? In this case …’
‘You know what, let’s save this for later?’ Joe said, interrupting Matt. ‘Got the feel of something we need a sweet, floral dessert wine for.’
Matt shrugged and said sure, and the subject changed. Roisin felt a pang at the mannerlessness of it, while understanding Joe was white-knighting Gina. She made a mental note to apologise to Matt and address it with Joe. Joe and Matt had always had a slight friction between them, but Roisin worried it had lately bloomed into a full-blown antipathy on Joe’s side. Matt was blissfully unaware, as Matt’s life generally was a lot of bliss and unawareness.
A month ago, she’d ticked Joe off for sniping and provoked a rant.
‘What irks me about Matt McKenzie is that if he was a woman, you’d hate him. Whereas I merely find him annoying and occasionally …’ Joe paused to choose his word with the consideration of a word-choosing gourmet, ‘… dispiriting. But if he was female? My God. You’d judge him so hard and have got rid years ago. So don’t judge me.’
‘Why?! Because he dates lots of people? Dev gets on with him!’
‘Dev won a reality show because he gets on with anyone. Dates lots of people is a decorous way of putting it, like he’s Michael Caine in the Sixties. Don’t forget I know more than you, thanks to lads’ talk.’
Roisin shrugged, a concession that this much was true.
‘He trades relentlessly on his looks and his whole concocted …’ Joe waved his hands. ‘… light-hearted Casanova persona. But he plays with women like they’re catnip toys. He bats them around, until that addictive scent of the new is gone. I can’t imagine it’s very nice for them and it’s horrible for Gina.’
‘Matt can’t help how Gina feels. Or how he doesn’t feel.’
‘Mmmm, maybe not. I think he can’t be with her because it’d have to mean something, and he can’t risk that. My guess is he’ll ruin both their lives by only realising they should be together when it’s far too late. Which is very Matt.’
‘If he’s so awful, why would he be any good for Gina?’
‘He wouldn’t. But Gina, I am sorry to say, is never going to be truly happy with anyone else. Sometimes that just happens to a person. They can’t move on.’
Roisin thought this was a trifle dramatic. Typical writer.
‘Mark my words,’ Joe said. ‘He’ll realise she’s his forever love when he turns up on her doorstep, crying over the three kids he’s lost access to – now with added drink problem, a mortgage lost to the Crypto crash and a head full of Rogaine. And she’ll blow up her good-enough marriage to take him in.’
Roisin had a secret suspicion about what really wound Joe up about Matt, which she wasn’t foolhardy enough to tell Joe.
Joe’s self-image, if not much of his career, was based on his skill at a barbed observation and sparkling one-liner. Whisper it, Matt could do those, too. He just didn’t make a deal of it. He casually chucked away for free what Joe cherished as his currency.
Joe sensed competition, but worse than that, competition from someone who wasn’t bothering to compete with him.
When Joe had finished his speech about Matt’s criminality, he opened his phone and tapped things he’d said into his Notes app. A move with which Roisin had grown wearily familiar.
6
‘Was it really necessary to cut Matt short like that, when he was merely answering a question?’ Roisin hissed, at the precise moment she remembered to raise it.
Roisin had exited the bathroom in a towel, one smoky eye made up, kohl pencil in hand, the other eye slightly pink from the hot shower.
Joe was sitting shoeless, smart-trousered and cross-legged atop the quilt in their four poster. Their room was so royally lavish that Roisin felt awed and yet borderline sickened, like it had raised her cholesterol. Was this where the concept of something making you weak at the knees came from?
They’d opened the heavy wooden door to the sight of a giant potted fern, Art Nouveau-tiled period fireplace, and a canopied bed, the sort women died in after childbirth. Dark red walls, like a blood clot. It could’ve been gloomy but the sky-high ceiling prevented it from becoming overbearing. There was a free-standing, roll-top scarlet bath in the marble bathroom, along with a walk-in shower.
Joe, who had been frowning intently into his silver MacBook Air, now looked up with a nonplussed expression.
‘You what?’
She was sure Joe knew exactly what she was referring to. It suited him to feign confusion, to make it seem as if Roisin was forensically obsessive – slash – a massive nag.
‘When Gina asked Matt about his Lisbon girlfriend. We need a drink for that, Matt, hush now? I know we all want to protect Gina, but he’s not doing anything wrong, either.’
‘Oh – he was clearly about to do some unseemly bragging about sexual athletics that Gina didn’t need to hear.’
‘He barely began – you didn’t know what he was going to say. He’s never exactly crude or graphic, either.’
‘Ach, come on, you know Matt. Any opportunity to show off. Everything’s a horse to his Lady Godiva. And “The Reverse Catfish” sounded sufficiently ominous to me.’
‘Well, Gina asked him how it went. She may have a crush, but she’s not a child.’
‘Nor is Matt. Yet here I am, being told off for being less than mildly snippy to him.’
Joe made a palms-up whodathunk gesture and smiled, to defuse it. Roisin made a diplomatic head tilt in return. She dropped her voice even lower.
‘Look. I feel the pressure that Dev has made a huge gesture. He doesn’t want us squabbling and ruining it. This has to be a success, for his sake.’
Or at least seem like one, she thought.
‘I agree, no squabbling,’ Joe said. ‘Like … say … this.’
Roisin had been outmanoeuvred.
He moved his eyes back to his screen.
‘Just tryna concentrate on transatlantic publicity schedules here. If that’s OK, darling.’
Roisin was accustomed to this gently patronising tone when Joe reminded her he had VIP business to attend to. It had started out as ironic, and was now not particularly, if at all, ironic.
7
Roisin remembered when she used to pay for Joe’s train tickets to London and for clothes that weren’t faded band tees. She didn’t mind, and today Joe could rightly say her investment had been repaid to the tune of many, many thousands. The apartment was in both their names.
She wasn’t selfishly nostalgic for Joe being dependent on her, she was sure of that. She just wished it hadn’t led here.
Once, Joe’s career had felt like wholly shared excitement; she had the seat next to him on the fairground ride. SEEN started out a moon-shot, an outline written in coffee shops, its plot twists tested on Roisin as the first audience.
So, wait: HE turns out to be the man in the video doorbell footage, too? Wow, no, I wouldn’t see that coming. That’s really clever, Joe.
Then it became a pilot script in Final Draft software – Roisin had enjoyed reading the lead female character’s dialogue aloud for him. She felt robbed when a hair-tossing actress got to say, palms down on desk: ‘Harry. I’d bet my life we’re dealing with identical twins. And if this play we’re making doesn’t come off, I HAVE bet my life!’
Thing is, Roisin hadn’t only been unprepared for its impact, she’d been complacent. The great thing about Joe being the writer and not an actor, she’d blathered to the group, is he can get creative fulfilment and no hassle down Burton Road.
When SEEN became signed contracts, they bought fish and chips and a £10 bottle of cava and had a picnic date in the park together. It felt like a statement, instead of going to a fancy restaurant. It’s going to be Still Us, the way we always were, Plus This.
