Would Like to Meet. Polly James
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me when I’m feeling a bit tearful, or lonely – he’ll say, “Mum! What’s wrong? Come over here.”
Then he’ll give me a big hug, and tell me that everything’s going to be okay, even when he has no idea what I’m sad about. It helps much more than you’d think it would – but I can’t let myself think about feeling lonely at the moment. I have to get this nightmare over and then I can focus on making my Friends fantasy come to life.
“We’ve got something important to tell you, Joel,” I say, “so pay attention.”
“Um, Hannah,” says Dan, shifting about from foot to foot, and looking extremely uncomfortable. “There’s something else I should tell you first.”
I take no notice, as delaying tactics are typical of Dan. He’ll always put off doing anything tricky or emotional if he can, but he’s not getting away with it this time. We said we’d do this together, and we said we’d do it tonight – and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Even if “together” means him standing there like a spare part while I do the difficult bit.
“Your dad and I are splitting up, Joel,” I say.
Joel doesn’t react at all, but when I look across at Dan and catch his eye, he shakes his head and swallows, then decides he’d better help out, after all.
“Joel?” he says. “Did you hear what your mother said? We’re splitting up.”
Dan’s voice sounds deadly serious, if a bit shaky, but Joel just laughs.
“Yeah, yeah – very funny,” he says. “Pull the other one. You two would never split up.”
It takes ages to persuade him that we would – and are – and then he’s incredulous, and extremely upset.
“But why?” he says. “Why the hell would you do that?”
I suggest Dan explains, seeing as the whole thing was originally his idea, but that doesn’t help at all, because he takes so long to get to the point. He starts by telling Joel about the argument, and what it was about.
“You argued about what?” says Joel, staring at Dan and me in turn. “A television programme? Have you both gone senile overnight?”
For a split second, I wonder if we have, but then Dan tells Joel that we haven’t. He adds, “I suppose we’re trying to make our lives happier, before we do.”
When I hear that, I excuse myself by saying I need to make an urgent call. I suddenly can’t face hearing why Dan’s so unhappy with me and, anyway, it’s always good to check that the Speaking Clock still exists. I give myself a talking-to at the same time as I discover it is 7:32 exactly, and then I replay the Mr Suave scenario several times in my head, just to remind myself that everything will be all right, eventually.
It almost works, until I go back to the living room, to find Dan sitting slumped in a chair with his head in his hands, and Joel pacing round and round the room in circles.
“You tell him why we’re doing this, Hannah,” says Dan. “I’ve run out of reasons, and he thinks all the ones I’ve already given him are ‘total crap’. He says we’re both going to be lonely, too.”
“No, we won’t,” I say. “We’ll be fine, Joel. We’ll have our friends to keep us company – and you, of course. You can come and see me whenever you like.”
“You two have ignored your friends for so long, you haven’t got any real ones left,” says Joel, at the same time as Dan says, “What d’you mean he can come and see you, Hannah? See you where? He’ll be here – with you – every day. You’ll need him to pay rent to help with the mortgage, once I move out at the end of this week.”
Oh, dear God. When Dan moves out at the end of this week? This week? And Dan’s the one who’s moving out, not me? I don’t know what to say to any of that, but Joel does.
“I’ve never heard such a dumbass reason for splitting up, in all my life,” he says. “And I think one of you is lying, or both of you. Which one of you is seeing someone else?”
That possibility hadn’t occurred to me until now, but if one of us is, it isn’t me. Not when Mr Suave’s not real. I think I may be about to cry again.
It seems that one of Dan’s colleagues had a spare room going – really cheap – so Dan says he’d have been a fool if he hadn’t taken it. He also insists that Joel was wrong about him seeing someone else, though he was right about the other thing: I’ve got no friends. Well, I have, but even though I’ve rung all of them over the last few days – while Dan’s been supposedly working late – they all went on so much about how long it had been since the last time I called, that I ended up not telling any of them that he and I were splitting up. They might have thought it was the only reason I was bothering to phone them now.
It was, I suppose, but that’s not the point. They’ve all posted that thing on Facebook about it not mattering how long it’s been since you last spoke to an old friend, so I’d assumed that was genuinely how they felt. Obviously, it wasn’t, so things are already looking pretty desperate on the friends front by the time that Joel gets home from work.
He sits down on the sofa next to me, and kicks off his shoes while I stare in disbelief at his socks. One says, “Fuck” and the other says, “Off”.
This is what you have to endure when your son refuses to go to university, and insists on working in a super-hip streetwear store instead, one where all the staff are required to talk in gangsta-speak even if they’ve never been anywhere near a gang. The whole thing drives Dan mad, and Joel’s still in the middle of a fairly incomprehensible explanation of how he uses the socks to swear at his boss without him being aware of it, when I lose the will to listen and decide to phone Theo and Claire, instead.
They’re neighbours, rather than friends, but Dan and I have probably socialised more often with them than with anyone else over the last ten years (mainly because that keeps us close enough to home to prevent Joel throwing parties while we’re out). I think they’re all right, though Dan’s never been keen on Claire.
When she answers the phone I tell her my news straight away. There’s no point giving myself the chance to chicken out, even though I know it’ll make the whole thing feel much worse once someone other than Joel knows.
“Good God,” says Claire, and then she repeats herself. After that, there’s quite an uncomfortable pause before she adds, “I assume you won’t be coming to our dinner tonight, if that’s the case?”
I’d forgotten all about it, what with what’s been going on with me and Dan, and I’m about to confirm we won’t be there when I wonder if I’m being stupid. You’re probably supposed to start as you mean to go on, when you’re trying to rebuild your messed-up life.
“Well, I guess I could come by myself,” I say to Claire, after taking a few deep breaths. “Seeing as I’m still going to be your neighbour, at least until Joel decides it’s time to move out.”
It sounds as if Claire snorts at the remoteness of that ever happening, but then she pulls herself together and says, “That’s great! See you in a couple of hours.”
Her voice sounds a bit weird when she says it, but I don’t give that any further thought, until the phone rings ten minutes later, and Joel answers it. He sounds very charming and un-gangsta-like while doing so, which is reassuring, but what happens next isn’t reassuring at all. The caller is Theo (of Theo-and-Claire), and he’s obviously drawn the short straw, given that he’s the one making this call.
“I’m so sorry, Hannah,” he says. “Claire asked me to tell you she was so stunned by your news, she completely forgot to mention there’s been a problem with the catering,