Chapter 3

The people I was going to see were a small but growing advertising agency. I wanted some discrete advertising of my services. I had discussed it with them on the phone, and they had sent mockups by email, but I wanted to meet them face to face, and see the stuff in the flesh, so to speak.

I thought that with tweaking, a contract would take two days to finalise, and so I booked Thursday afternoon and all day Friday with them. I booked my train, getting a ridiculously low first class fare by booking ahead and going after ten thirty in the morning. No point in wasting money!

I must say I was looking forward eagerly to spending the weekend with Nicola. I wondered if this time she would actually get round to saying what she had in mind, apart from another grovelling apology about how she'd treated me in school. I also wondered if she intended to stay with me at the hotel, or go home each evening.

Though the questions kept intruding in spare moments, I would not allow myself to speculate, but suspected she did want some sort of relationship with me, though how that would work I did not know. Neither did I know how I felt about the prospect.

I was strongly attracted to her, as I always had been, but feared being let down again if we got too serious. She had been good at letting me down. In that light, my coming to London to see her was a commitment on my part; a risk in that it gave her some sort of positive message that I wasn't sure I wanted to convey.

It was the end of May, but I left Manchester in a welter of cool, heavy showers, and arrived at lunchtime in London in warm bright sunshine. It cheered me up. The meeting went very well, and in fact they were so efficient and fair to me that we finished the work by six on Thursday.

I wondered what to do. I was now a day early, so I decided to phone her and make a date for that evening – just a drink in a pub or something like that. She would hardly baulk at an extra day after all she had said.

The call went to voice mail twice and she did not reply. I decided to get a taxi from my hotel to her flat, and see if she was in. I knew she sometimes did evening photo shoots so may not be at home, but perhaps her housemates would know where she was.

"Hello?" said the tall blonde. The accent was 'epper clars'; the sort of pronunciation the Queen uses. She was exquisite (the blonde, not the Queen), there was no other word for her. She was as tall as I was, though she was wearing heels. She was slim, perfectly proportioned, and wearing impeccable make up, a designer casual form-fitting sweater and tight jeans. Her hair shone, her face was very pretty – not delicate, but strong and symmetrical. Her perfume was understated but enticing.

All my male biology wanted to stand there for the rest of the evening and gaze at her, but I controlled myself.

"Good evening," I replied. "I wonder, would Nicola be at home this evening?"

She stared at me, unsmiling. "I'm afraid not. She's not been here all week, and some of last week come to that."

"Oh. I am a day early. I told her I would be in town tomorrow evening–"

"Well," she cut across me. "She won't be here tomorrow or the weekend. Her boyfriend is taking her away for the weekend."

My spirits rose for a split second: she was going to spend the entire weekend, nights and all with me! A split second, I said, before:

"They've only just got back together after a while apart, and they dropped off some of her stuff on Tuesday. While she was sorting her stuff, Terry, her man, told me they would be going to Paris tomorrow for the weekend. So you're out of luck, I'm afraid." There was no encouraging smile.

I was stunned for a moment. Nicola had done it again. This time she had burnt her boats. This was a calculated insult.

"I'm sorry I've troubled you," I said. "Would you be kind enough to tell her when you see her that I came calling as she asked, and not to bother calling me any more. Kevin Connors is the name."

She nodded and shut the door.

I stood before the closed door for a moment, trying to make sense of what had transpired. Why had she not rung me and said she was back with her boyfriend? Why bring me all this way, to go away with someone else for the weekend? To Paris with all its implied romance.

I decided I did not want to know the answer. The woman was bad news. She was bad news in school and was bad news still. I wanted to put as much distance between me and her as possible, as quickly as possible. I went back to the hotel and checked out, paying the cancellation fee and then the exorbitant train fare back home.

On the train I phoned Beth.

"Doing anything tomorrow night, or the weekend? I need some TLC."

"Thought you were seeing this old school friend? She let you down?"

"You could say that. Wasted trip to London. I could have done the contract business on conference call. Tell you tomorrow."

"I'll come to you."

It was drier and brighter than it had been in the morning and warmer when I left the local train. I bought fish and chips on the way home, and ate them with a beer in the kitchen. Then a second beer. The greasy food and the alcohol, both of which tasted wonderful and all the more so for being seriously sinful, made me feel a good deal better.

I looked back over the preceding weeks. I had a relaxed, comfortable life before that stupid BBC programme. Programmes like that should carry a health warning.

She seemed intent on finding me, then intent on meeting me, then intent on explaining to me, except that she didn't. What was her intent after that? I had suspected that she wanted a relationship again, why else would she want me to go to London for the weekend? So I jump through all the hoops. She gazes at me with love and sincerity, kisses goodbye with a good deal of promise, I commit to seeing her and she drops me in the shit again. Enough, I thought. No more. Let her go back to her life and leave me to live mine.

I caught myself. She had already gone back to her life. She had decided on this Terry. So be it.

However I was still angry certainly, but something else. Frustrated? Jealous? That was it. She had left me hanging – again.

Darling Beth arrived full of concern and compassion on Friday evening. We went out locally for an Italian meal and arrived back to find the answer-phone blinking. Four messages. Beth went to the loo, and I scrolled through.

Answer one. Nicola. "Kevin –" Erase.

Answer two. Nicola. "Kevin–" Erase.

And so on for three and four. There was nothing she could say. It would only lead to more trouble and more distress on my part.

I disconnected the phone, and put my mobile on silent. No distractions. Beth needed all her attention to comfort me. That is what I thought, and she agreed with me. Very agreeable, Beth!

I sent Nicola a text.

Nicola every time we meet you mess up my life. You invite me to spend the weekend and go off with your boyfriend or is it fiancé? Leave me alone. Go and have a good life with Terry. Goodbye. Kevin.

Over the meal, I had told Beth the tale. She had sat back after dessert and looked at me.

"So," she said, "that's the woman you are in love with."

I exploded in denial, but she shook her head.

"No, Kev," she said gently. "She might keep messing you up, but you are in love with her. We all knew there was a woman in your life somewhere, but we couldn't think who. You'll get over it. She's mixed up, that's her trouble."

"I can't take any more," I said plaintively, almost whining, "Every time she contacts me, she buggers up my life. I really had put her a long way behind me, until that stupid programme. I'd even forgotten about her – well, as much as you ever do."

"You may not have been conscious of her," she said wisely, "but somewhere it's kept you from committing to any of us."

"You never wanted commitment. You want the free life."

"At the moment, but most women want to settle down eventually. We all have bio-clocks ticking you know – men don't."

"But you don't want to settle with me."

"We talk about you, you know," she smiled. "We all agreed that you would be a good catch, but you weren't ever really fully available – not that we want you available just yet, but in the future. There was something..." she searched for the word, "sort of 'spoken-for' about you. Now I know why. I'm sure you'll get over her in time. She'll become a warm memory."

I shook my head.

"I'm over her now, and I don't think the memory will ever be warm. What sort of woman invites you for an intimate weekend where she promises she will bare her soul at the very least, gets you there and then goes off to Paris with someone else? She's a bitch."

Beth shrugged her shoulders. "Seems odd, not right somehow."

"Somehow? You don't know her," I said warming to the task. "She got me to take her virginity so she could enjoy having sex with the captain of the soccer team! Get this, she told me I had a reputation for having a small thin cock, so it wouldn't hurt her as much as the big butch footballer. After a whole weekend of her multiple orgasms, and her cherry almost painlessly plucked, her final comment was, 'Thanks, Kevin, now I'm really ready to enjoy doing it with Barry.'"

"But you knew why you were having sex with her. All right, it was crass of her, but she didn't try to trick you. You'd fallen for her, that was your trouble."

"The only upside was she told me I was actually bigger than him! She could have been done by him all along, though from what she said he wasn't much good in bed!"