What might have been, p.16
What Might Have Been, page 16
Finn poured the milk into a large paper cup and clicked a plastic lid onto the top. ‘Give me just one second,’ he said, handing it to the woman, then he leaned over the counter, grabbed Evan’s face by the cheeks, and gave him a loud kiss on the forehead.
‘What did you do that for?’ Evan wiped his forehead with his sleeve. ‘It’s embarrassing.’
‘That’s why I did it!’ Finn winked at him as he took the woman’s money and rang it through the till. ‘When did you get back?’
‘Couple of days ago.’ Evan looked him up and down carefully. ‘How are you? Been looking after yourself ?’
‘I’m good. And yes, thanks, Mum.’ Finn squeezed him affectionately on the upper arm, doing a double-take at the muscle he could feel. ‘Touring life suits you, I see?’
Evan shrugged. ‘Oh, you know.’
‘I wish I did, mate.’ He made a face. ‘Does Johnny know you’re back?’
Evan shook his head. ‘Not yet. Why?’
‘No reason.’ Finn grinned. ‘So what brings you here?’
‘Couldn’t resist one of your coffees.’
‘After a year of drinking that American sludge I’m not surprised. What can I get you? Your usual?’
‘Great. Thanks.’
‘Anything with it?’
Evan peered up at the chalk board on the back wall for inspiration, but couldn’t find any. ‘Some advice, maybe.’
‘Advice?’ Finn retrieved a couple of tiny espresso cups and placed them on the machine’s drip tray. ‘What about?’
‘Marriage.’
Finn raised both eyebrows. ‘Marriage?’
‘It’s, um, for a song I’m writing.’
Finn shook his head as he loaded the machine with coffee. ‘Pull the other one, Evan.’
‘Okay. Well, I’m just trying to make sure a friend of mine is making the right decision, that’s all.’
‘A “friend”?’
‘Sarah.’
Finn smiled knowingly. Evan had told him about Sarah’s newspaper announcement in a drunken late-night phone call a few weeks earlier. ‘In that case,’ he said, exchanging the cups for larger ones, ‘I’d better make them doubles.’
‘So, I was wondering,’ said Evan, struggling to make himself heard over the noise from the coffee machine. ‘When you ask someone to marry you . . .’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, how do you know it’s the right thing to do?’
Finn regarded him curiously. ‘Shouldn’t you be asking David that?’
‘Will you just answer the question, rather than giving me grief ?’
‘Sorry.’ Finn carried their coffees over to a window table, and Evan followed him obediently. ‘Well, I’m afraid you’ll only really know afterwards.’
Evan’s jaw dropped open. ‘After you’ve got married?’
‘No. After you’ve proposed. It’s one of those questions. It never feels quite right in the lead-up to it. You almost always stumble over the words, and in fact, it’s not until you’ve actually given them life – like when you play a piece of music for the first time – that you know whether it sounds right.’
‘Yeah, but . . .’ Evan sipped his espresso as he stared out into the street. ‘How can you tell?’
‘Because if it does, it’s the best thing in the world. Better than sex, even.’ Finn laughed at Evan’s expression. ‘But it can be the shortest-lived feeling ever too. Depending . . .’
‘On?’
Finn reached over and rested a hand on Evan’s shoulder. ‘Her answer. Remember, she’ll probably have put as much thought into that as you have into the proposal.’
‘Great.’ Evan put his coffee cup back down miserably. ‘So what you’re saying is, because she’s said yes to him, that she’s already made her choice, and so I shouldn’t bother?’
‘Not necessarily.’ Finn smiled at him across the table. ‘Did it ever occur to you to wonder why Sarah started seeing you, when she was already going out with him?’
‘Well, she must have, you know . . .’
‘What?’
Evan felt himself colour. ‘Liked what she saw.’
Finn smirked. ‘More likely she was trying to make her mind up.’
‘About what?’
‘David. Because that’s normally what people do when they’re trying to select something. Look at you and the Police gig. It all came down to you and that one other bloke, didn’t it?’
‘I guess,’ said Evan. ‘Although I didn’t know that at the time.’
‘Not unlike the Sarah situation.’ Finn laughed. ‘But there you go. Whatever you want, if it’s a car, or a house, you draw up a shortlist, right? Except you can’t do that when you’re dating, can you? Can’t normally see two people at the same time, then decide which one you like.’
‘Americans do.’
Finn folded his arms. ‘Proves my point.’
‘How?’
‘Think about it. Most people – most English people, anyway – go out with a series of partners. Learn something from each one. Apply that to the next relationship they look for, then eventually end up with something, or someone, approaching the finished product. That way, they’ve manoeuvred themselves into a position where the one they’re with is the one they’re meant to be with. But only after a lot of trial and error.’
‘I’m sorry, Finn – this point you’re trying to prove . . .’
Finn grinned. ‘Is that she obviously didn’t want to put herself through all that time and effort. She wasn’t able to make her mind up about him, so she started seeing you, just to give her something to compare him to.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
‘Doesn’t it?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘Well, it should.’
‘How?’ said Evan, exasperatedly. ‘She chose him. I obviously didn’t measure up.’
‘Doesn’t sound like that to me.’
Evan sighed, then drained the rest of his coffee. ‘Well, it’s what she did, Finn. So it must have been.’
‘Maybe not.’
‘What do you mean, maybe not?’
‘She picks you as her yardstick. You bugger off before she can make up her mind. And either she sticks with him because the clock is ticking, or she feels guilty about what she’s done, or because he senses he might be losing her and redoubles his efforts.’
‘Which might have been all she was after in the first place.’ Evan shook his head slowly. ‘I’m sorry, Finn. I just don’t buy that.’
‘Okay. Look at it this way. Say you’d ordered a latte, then the minute you did it, you realised you’d made the wrong decision.’
‘This is hardly comparable to ordering a coffee.’
‘That’s not important. What is is the uncanny way you know you’ve made the wrong decision the instant after you’ve made what you thought was going to be the right one. Right?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Right.’ Finn leaned in closer and lowered his voice, as if explaining plans for a bank heist. ‘So say Sarah was trying to engineer a proposal out of David. Then one day, bingo. She gets it. Says yes almost automatically, because that’s what she’s been after all along. And then, the second she’s said it, she realises there’s a chance she might be making a mistake.’
‘Well then, you’d just back out of it, wouldn’t you?’
‘Would you? Like you just said, it’s hardly ordering a coffee. And what if by that time you’ve only got the one option, unless you can bluff someone else into making you the same offer, so at least you’re making your decision on a level playing field?’
‘Why?’
‘Perhaps because there’s a part of you thinking that this might be your last chance. And so you don’t want to blow it.’
‘So you’re saying that she’s got an offer – an acceptable offer – but she’s decided to use that fact to see if she can leverage a counter-offer, just to make sure in her own mind she’s doing the right thing?’
Finn nodded. ‘Oldest trick in the book. Why else would she have placed the announcement?’
‘Because she wants to be rescued?’
‘Rescued? This isn’t the Middle Ages, and she’s certainly not some damsel in distress. If she wanted out of there, she’d be out of there, don’t you worry.’
‘So what, then?’
Finn glanced towards the till, checking for customers. ‘You don’t jump from a sinking ship unless you know the one you’re jumping to can float, do you? So maybe it’s her last shot at getting you to lay it on the line for her, so she can convince herself that her last-minute jitters are just that. Or not.’
‘Yeah, but this is pretty extreme. I mean, she can’t be thinking about, you know, spending the rest of her life with someone after just one night.’
‘Why not? You are.’ Finn smiled. ‘Of course, it could simply be the “kids” thing.’
‘Kids thing? What kids thing?’
‘As in her wanting them. Did you two ever have that discussion?’
Evan sighed loudly. ‘Finn, Sarah and I didn’t really have time to discuss our views on anything.’
‘Well, just remember that most women are driven by this need at some point in their lives. Sarah’s that age, and if that’s the case . . . she might just see David as the better bet.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yeah. If Sarah did have such a biological urge, why would she have wasted her time having an affair with me?’
‘Affair? I’d check your dictionary definitions, if I were you. One night . . .’
‘And one lunch,’ protested Evan, weakly.
‘Whatever. But perhaps some sort of switch has flipped inside her while you’ve been away. Maybe she’s suddenly decided that that is what she wants, and that this guy’s in the best position to provide her with them – or rather, provide for her and them. And if that’s the case, then you can’t really argue with that.’
‘Thanks, Finn.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
A young Asian girl coughed politely from where she’d been waiting patiently by the till, so Finn got up to serve her, and as his friend headed back behind the counter, Evan wondered how he’d feel if that was the deal-breaker. Finn’s observation had thrown him a little, and while he liked kids – well, he liked Finn’s kids – children were a little off his radar at the moment. He didn’t know many musicians – multimillionaires aside – who were good at playing happy families, perhaps given the piecemeal nature of their work. The only ones he knew with children were those who’d had them accidentally, and either lugged them around on tour like an extra over-heavy piece of luggage, or relied on a parenting technique that involved little more than posting a cheque once a month. If the pram in the hall was rumoured to be an issue for women in the arts, it certainly was for men. You couldn’t play until the small hours and come home to a small baby.
Could he see himself as a dad? He supposed so. After all, wasn’t it one of those things that you just did, like learning to drive, or playing an instrument – seemingly impossible at first, with too much going on all at once, but eventually it just became second nature? But then again, he only had a one-bedroom flat. He didn’t want to have to move, and yet surely they couldn’t start a family living like that . . .
Start a family. Evan fought to stem the panic he could feel rising in his chest. He’d had a goldfish a few years ago but had forgotten to feed it, and he’d come back from a series of gigs in Germany to find it floating upside-down in its bowl. Once, he’d even thought about getting a dog, but deemed the responsibility, the commitment, too much. He knew he was perhaps jumping the gun a bit, but for the first time, wondered what he might be taking on. Marriage? And kids? The idea was making him break out in a cold sweat.
He looked over at Finn, the former blue-eyed boy of Jazzed now with a couple of blue-eyed boys of his own, noting the lines around his eyes, the flecks of grey in his hair, and what looked suspiciously like the beginnings of a paunch. And no matter how hard he swallowed, Evan couldn’t dislodge the lump that had formed in his throat.
29
Sarah cursed the men doing roadwork outside at such an early hour, then realised the loud rumbling that had woken her was in fact David’s snoring, and wondered where she was before working out that the total absence of light meant they’d gone back to his apartment yesterday evening. He could only sleep in complete blackness, and while she’d joked with him that this wasn’t the kind of fumbling in the dark she wanted, Sarah still hadn’t managed to change his habits. She preferred to sleep with the curtains open, and the black eye-mask David insisted on wearing whenever they spent the night at her place always made her feel like she was sharing a bed with Zorro.
She held her pillow over her head to try and block out the noise, wondering whether it was too late to add ‘earplugs’ to the wedding gift list, then retrieved her mobile phone from the bedside table and checked the time. It was just gone six, and although she didn’t have to be in the office for another two hours, Sarah decided she’d get up and go home first.
Careful not to wake him, she slipped quietly out from under the small corner of duvet she’d managed to prevent David wrestling from her as they slept, and – using the light from her mobile as a torch – gathered her clothes from the chair in the corner, crept into the hallway, and pulled her skirt on. She was anxious to get home and shower – at her initiation they’d had sex last night – and while from memory it hadn’t quite been up to her and Evan’s standard from their one night together, she’d made sure she put in a good performance. Even if David hadn’t.
Sarah caught herself, wondering why she’d suddenly become so critical of him. Was it simply pre-wedding nerves, or just that Evan being back on the scene meant she couldn’t help comparing every aspect of her and David’s relationship to how things with Evan might have been? She thought back to Grace’s idea of drawing a line down the centre of a piece of A4 and listing their respective good – and bad – points, wondering whether it’d be useful, but dismissed it again. With less than a week to go, that would be a little desperate.
She finished dressing to the accompaniment of David’s rasping, which to her amazement even penetrated the bedroom door, and wondered whether Evan snored. Would it make a difference? she asked herself. And did it really matter that David did?
If it had been Evan lying next to her this morning, she’d have woken him up so they could have sex once more, then she’d have gone to work with a spring in her step, the taste of him on her lips, and a buzz coursing through her body for the rest of the morning – just like they’d done a year ago. With David, she’d done everything she could not to wake him. And she found that even more disturbing than his snoring.
But this was marriage, she reminded herself, not an affair, and not even dating. Things were supposed to be different. Marriage was, well . . . How did she know what it was? Her mother’s disappearance meant she’d not been old enough to see how her parents’ marriage had worked – though it evidently hadn’t. Her father had done his best to bring her up on his own at the expense of his own love life – and Sarah had always felt guilty about that. And while she knew it was illogical, that was one of the things she wanted from David. Someone who’d always be there. Unless, perhaps, he found out what she’d been up to back then with Evan.
But even that was in the past. History. Besides, if it ever came out, Sarah was sure she’d be able to explain it away as simply keeping her options open. After all, since then, she’d been completely faithful – and in any case, she still didn’t see what she and Evan had done as being unfaithful. Though she knew hers might be the minority view.
She took her coat down from the rack, tiptoed along the hallway, and quietly let herself out through the front door, hoping David wouldn’t be annoyed to wake up and find her gone, although that would presume he remembered they’d spent the night together in the first place – his hangover cure, following the couple of Bloody Marys he’d had with their late lunch, had been the best part of two bottles of wine. Besides, why shouldn’t she be free to come and go as she pleased? He might as well get used to it; her independence was one of the things she was determined to maintain after they were married. And as silly as that might sound, given the amount of time that David spent in the office, she was pretty sure that life for her could pretty much go on as it always had. She was planning to keep her room in Grace’s flat – she suspected it might come in handy when she fancied the odd night away – and while David would surely think it an extravagance, they hardly needed the money, particularly with both of their incomes. No, Sarah assured herself, theirs would be a modern marriage. A partnership. Not quite an arrangement, but not far off, and she could be – would be – happy with that.
But as she walked home, her coat fastened tightly against the morning chill, she tried not to think of the one major downside to marrying David – that she couldn’t ever allow herself to have anything more to do with Evan. How big a downside that was, she couldn’t really tell, but one thing she knew: It wasn’t one she wanted to dwell upon.
30
Evan walked down Carnaby Street, side-stepping the usual charity canvassers hanging around outside the Liberty department store, then turned left towards Soho. Just opposite a large neon art installation of a plug and socket that always seemed to have one or other of its tubes flickering, he stopped by his agent’s black-painted door and rang the buzzer.
‘Fuller Benson.’
Evan smiled to himself as the crackly female voice emerged from the speaker. Having a double-barrelled name gave the agency more gravitas, Johnny had told him once. And he supposed it did. Right up until you found out that Benson was Johnny’s dog.
‘Evan McCarthy. To see Johnny Fuller.’
