Chapter 5

By seven pm, I’d finished all my homework and was actually feeling calm and peaceful. My phone still hadn’t rung.

When I joined the rest of the family for tea nobody mentioned my ex-girlfriend, for which I was glad. She’d made her decision, her choice and I was at peace with it. One thing I was certain of, I wasn’t rushing out and looking for another one.

She never rang me on Sunday, nor on Monday, so obviously she wasn’t worried about losing me, and life was running along normally. Then, on Tuesday evening, I heard of her.

I was up in my room after tea, working on some dynamics problems when there was a light tapping at my door, and my sister poked her head in.

“Are you busy?” she asked.

“Never too busy for you,” I replied, putting my pen into the current page of my textbook and closing the book round it, “what’s up?”

“Bet you can’t guess who I just had a Skype call from,” she said.

“A certain young woman in Manchester?” I guessed.

“Damn, you got it,” she said.

“And what did Miss Calista Warner want of you?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said, “other than that I should ask you to talk to her.”

“So she’s asking you to act as a go-between?” I asked.

“I suppose so,” she replied.

“And?”

“I passed the message on,” she said, “which is as much as I’m willing to do.”

“No pleading on her behalf?” I asked, “no explanations?”

“No,” she replied, “and no.”

“Right then,” I said, “message delivered.”

“And?” she queried.

“Pip, she’s still our next door neighbour, if I see her, I’ll at least say hello,” I replied, “but if she wants to talk then she has to turn up at the door and ask.”

“Can I tell her that?” she asked.

“Pip, I can’t dictate to you what you can or cannot tell anyone,” I said, “but yes, I’d be prepared, if you happen to speak to her again, for you to pass that on.”

“So, don’t ring her and tell her, but if she rings me, I can pass it on,” she said, a statement, not a question.

“Like I said, I can’t dictate what you say or to whom,” I said.

She gave me a hug before she left, and I went back to my maths.

I was already starting to wonder just exactly how much Maths I’d need to be a successful computer programmer, I already knew how much I’d need to be a successful film actor.

Wednesday night I had Rugby practice after school, so I didn’t get home until six, when I checked my text messages, I had six, all from Cal. I deleted them without reading them and after putting my stuff away in my room, my dirty kit into the laundry basket in the utility room and my boots in the shoe rack, I walked into the living room to sit with my family for a while.

After I’d told the parents about the school day, it was my Dad who pointed us in the direction of the rather large elephant parked in the corner of the living room.

“Son,” he said, quietly, “will you please do us all a gigantic favour, and speak to Cal. She’s driving all of us mad with texts and phone calls. If you just speak to her, I’m sure we’ll all be able to get on with our lives.”

“Dad, I have never refused to talk to her,” I replied, “I merely stipulated that if she wants to talk to me it has to be in person. I told Alison last night that I’ll talk to her any time she turns up at the door. What I won’t do, however, is sit on the end of a telephone and listen to some concocted cock and bull story cobbled together by her and her friends over there. I insist that any talking is done under the condition that she tells me the plain, ungarnished, honest truth.”

“Good luck with that son,” I heard my Dad say softly, earning him a harsh look from Mum.

“So, what is the truth David?” Mum asked.

I looked at my sister.

“You may not want to hear it in front of Alison, Mum,” I told her, “as the BBC is fond of saying, ‘may contain scenes of an adult nature and some strong language’.”

“David,” Mum replied, “your sister is the same age now as you were when you and Cal started performing your own scenes of an adult nature. She’s done the same social education course as you at school, I think she’s aware of what goes on in private bedrooms around the world.”

“And behind bike sheds,” Alison added, getting her a harsh look from Mum.

“All right then,” I said, “if you’re sure.”

Alison nodded, perhaps a little over-enthusiastically.

“Well on Friday night, over dinner, Cal started to try and get me interested in the idea of adding a third person to our relationship. I was relieved when she confirmed that her idea was that this person would be of the female persuasion,” I said.

“You have something against gays?” Alison asked.

“No,” I replied, “but I’m not interested in exchanging bodily fluids with another man. She even revealed the name of the person she had in mind.”

“Did you get to meet this person?” Mum asked.

“Not at that point,” I explained, “I did ask if Cal already had this set up, but she told me she didn’t.”

“All right,” Dad said, “so at this point, you have an offer on the table of every teenage boy’s ultimate fantasy.”

“Every teenage boy?” Mum said, “what about grown men.”

“We’re more sophisticated,” Dad replied.

“From there,” I continued, “we went to the school disco. As soon as we walked in, I was mobbed by ‘adoring fans’, wanting autographs, selfies and such like, it was some time later when I got free and went to find Cal.”

“You think that was staged to keep you occupied?” Dad asked.

“Probably,” I agreed, “but I don’t have evidence. I spotted Cal dancing with a group of other girls.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Dad said.

“Nothing at all,” I said, “so I went over and tried to interrupt. Cal must have thought I was someone else because she turned on me. Then softened up when she realised it was me. She introduced me to one of the girls. I think she honestly meant to introduce me round, but the one she introduced me to immediately called me a bozo, told me they were dancing and commanded me to go and get a drink.”

“Not very polite,” Mum said.

“I was a bit shocked, so I wandered over to the drinks table to get a Pepsi. It didn’t occur to me until much later that this girl’s name fitted well with the name of the girl Cal had spoken of earlier,” I went on, “anyway, at the drinks table I chatted to another girl who told me to beware of these girls. They’re known to the other students as the Sisterhood, they’re a bit like a sorority at American Universities. They have initiation rites, where people wanting to join have to do things, often degrading, sometimes downright illegal. They were notorious for making girls make their boyfriends look foolish or wimpish.”

“They don’t sound very nice,” Alison said.

“No,” I agreed, “I got myself a drink, went back over with the idea of extricating Cal from them. I told her I needed to talk to her, and her response was that we’d talk back at the hotel. I said, no I need to talk to you now. She decided to carry on with the dancing. At that point, I decided I wasn’t wanted there, and went back to the hotel.”

“So, then what?” Mum asked.

“The disco was due to finish at eleven,” I said, “I expected that as soon as she realised I wasn’t there any more Cal would come back, but she didn’t. At eleven, I started to pack my stuff, and, when she hadn’t appeared by eleven thirty, I took my bag, went downstairs, paid the bill for the two nights, and got a taxi to the station. She finally rang me at a quarter past midnight, asking where I was, so I told her. Then hung up and switched my phone off. I think you already know the rest.”

Mum looked horrified.

“And she doesn’t even have being drugged as an excuse this time,” she said, “David, I owe you an apology for Saturday morning.”

“Don’t worry about it Mum,” I said, “so there you have it.”

“No wonder you’re pissed off,” Alison said.

“Alison,” Mum growled.

“You said I was old enough for this Mum,” Ali replied.

Dad chuckled, softly and so Mum couldn’t see or hear him.

“And that’s why you’re refusing to talk to her?” Mum asked.

“I’m not refusing, Mum,” I replied, “all she needs to do is turn up at the door, but, like I said, only if she is honest with me. And even then, I don’t think she’ll like my end of the conversation.”

“You’re not going to take her back easily, are you?” Alison asked me.

“No,” I said, “I think we need to take a break from each other. See other people, and her being in Manchester is the ideal opportunity.”

“And do you think she’ll agree with you?” Mum asked.

“Right now, Mum,” I said flatly, “I don’t care whether she does or not.”

By that time, tea was ready and we all walked through to the dining room, where Mum had made Lasagne, with a lettuce and tomato salad. It was, as always, delicious.

Afterwards, my sister and I loaded the dishwasher, and washed the pans. Well, I washed them, she stacked them on the draining rack.

Finished, I went upstairs to crack on with my homework, which fortunately was pretty light tonight, just some reading.

I was half way through a chapter on databases, when my phone rang. The caller ID told me it was James in LA.

“James,” I said brightly as I answered the call, “what can I do for you my friend.”

“Say yes,” he said.

“I don’t think Mum would ever forgive me if I said yes to you, without knowing what I’m saying yes to,” I replied.

“How do you fancy six months on a TV series?” he asked.

“That depends on a number of factors,” I said.

“Would twenty-six episodes, a quarter of a million dollars per, be a factor?” he asked.

“That sounds like a nice factor,” I said, “what’s the story?”

“It’s a family sitcom,” he said, “the premise is the father was a student in England years ago and had a girlfriend there. Seventeen years afterwards, the girlfriend has died, and her son had been sent to his father in the US. The comedy is in the boy’s attempts to integrate in American society.”

“So, why am I being offered this?” I asked.

“Because the series has been taken up by CBS after a successful pilot, but unfortunately there has been an incident with the actor playing the son.”