Chapter 11

“David,” Cal said as we walked to the car, “do you remember that plan we had to buy a house here in Manchester and live in it while we were students.”

“Yes,” I replied, “what about it?”

“Do you think we could still do it?”

“I think it would be better if we discussed that when I get back from London,” I said, “we need to see how we survive that parting I think, before we make any concrete plans.”

“Well just remember my deadline for applying is the first week of October and yours is the middle of January, so we’ll have to make a decision by then.”

“Why the different dates?” I asked.

“Because you’re going to University and I’m going to a music college.”

She flashed the car doors and stood at the driver’s side, leaning against the roof, looking at me.

“What?” I said.

“You look like you were going to say something,” she said.

I just smiled at her and got into the car.

Once she was strapped in beside me I turned to her.

“Tell me about Winnie,” I said.

“She’s my friend at school, she’s nineteen, from somewhere in Surrey. I know it’s a cliché but her father is a stockbroker and she’s the oldest of three kids. What else do you want to know?”

“I want to know about you and Winnie,” I said, keeping my voice light.

“We’re friends,” she said.

“Cal let me remind you of something we discussed recently. We can probably get past anything if we communicate. If we don’t keep secrets, if we discuss what’s going on in our minds, our lives. I’m an actor, I make lots of money by pretending.”

She looked at me silently.

“In Another Place my character slowly falls for his best friend at school, a girl. The director had a behavioural psychologist come in and teach us about the little tell-tale signs of attraction. I even talked to my mother about it at Christmas, she tells me that that was how your Mum and she realised that we wanted to be more than just best friends. That’s how you and Winnie react to each other when you’re together.”

“I’m sorry, David,” she said, “I was going to tell you.”

“When?”

“When the time was right.”

“Cal, the time is always right,” I replied, “I’ll tell you what, go back inside and get Winnie, the three of us need to talk this out.”

“I think we need to talk about it first,” she replied.

“No,” I answered, “it involves all three of us, unless you’re going to tell me that whatever it is that you and she have going was only when you and I weren’t together and is now over. Are you telling me that?”

“David,” she said, “please let me explain. Don’t be angry, please.”

“Cal,” I replied, “I’m not angry, I just want to know what’s going on. If I don’t know what’s going on, I can only make one decision. Look, why don’t you go back inside, get Winnie and we’ll all go somewhere and talk?”

“You mean it?” she said, “you’re not angry?”

“Why would I be angry Cal?” I asked, “we haven’t been a couple for the past nine months, I had no claim on you, you could have had sex with every male in Manchester and it would have been none of my business.”

“You mean that, don’t you?” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

“Yes, just as it was none of your business what I did,” I replied, “and now we need to decide the way forward. And you and I can’t do that, Winnie has to be involved too.”

“I’ll go and see if she’ll come,” she said and started to open the door.

“I’ll come with you,” I said.

“You don’t need to,” she said.

“Actually,” I replied, “I think I do.”

We both got out of the car and walked back into the accommodation building.

Winnie wasn’t in the common room.

“She’s probably gone upstairs,” Cal said, “you’ll have to wait here, you’re not allowed up to the bedrooms.”

She disappeared back into the foyer and came back five minutes later, alone.

“She’s not there,” she said, “maybe she went out.”

I shrugged.

“Then we’d better get going,” I said.

Her stuff was already in the car, so we walked, holding hands out of the accommodation building and around to the car park.

“Where do you think she went?” I asked.

Cal just shrugged. “I don’t know. She has a habit of just going off by herself sometimes, usually when she needs to think something out.”

“Well, I hope she’s all right.”

“I’m sure she will be, let’s just go back to the hotel and I’ll ring her from there.”

“Why not just ring her now?” I asked.

“No it will be better if I do it from the hotel,” she said.

I paused for a long moment.

“You know where she is don’t you?”

She looked at me like I was holding a gun to her head.

She nodded.

“Where?”

“She’s in Alicia Bristol’s room,” she said.

“Ah,” I said, “you don’t sound pleased at that.”

“Yes, well,” she began.

“Cal,” I said, softly, “you’re obviously upset about it. You think she’s cheating on you don’t you?”

She looked at me as if I’d just slapped her face.

“No, I,” she began before I held my hand up to stop her.

“Cal, I think in all honesty, before we go any further, that you need to sort out what it is that you want. Do you want me, do you want Winnie, do you want me and Winnie. Then we and that’s all three of us, need to sort out what we want, both as individuals and together. And Cal, you’ve already contradicted yourself.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“When you came back downstairs, you told me she wasn’t there and suggested that perhaps she’d gone out, now you’ve told me she’s in this other girl’s room.”

“Oh, shit,” she said.

“Is that, oh shit I’ve been caught out in a lie, again?” I asked, “look at this point I think it’s better if I just go back to the hotel and you ring me when you’ve sorted yourself out, decided what it actually is that you want.”

I turned and started walking towards the school gates.

“David, wait,” she said, “I’ll run you back to the hotel.”

I turned and looked at her, shaking my head.

“No Cal, “I said, “thanks for the offer, but I think the walk will do me good.”

It took me twenty minutes to walk back to the hotel, I thought about what had happened and began to wonder whether I was overreacting. But she’d lied to me, again and if she did it once, who could say how many more times she’d do it.

By the time I was back in my room I had just about decided to finish my driving lessons, pass my test, then go home, take my exams at the college and then buy a car and set off down to London ready to start work. I couldn’t see anything truly worth staying up North for.

I was about to go out and find some lunch when my phone rang, my heart sank when I saw from the caller ID that it was home.

“Hello, Mum,” I said without much enthusiasm, I assumed that Cal had rung her and asked her to intercede.

I was wrong.

“Hello, Son,” my dad said, “has she done it again?”

“I seriously have no idea, Dad,” I said, “we went over to the school this morning so she could get some clean clothes and her books and stuff so she could do her homework. While we were there, I found she had been seeing someone else.”

“Surely that’s not a problem,” he said, “so were you.”

“I know, dad, but I got the impression that she still wants to see the someone else.”

“I can see where that might be a sticking point,” he said.

“So she rang Mum,” I said, “and asked her to intercede on her behalf?”

“Yes,” he replied, “strangely your Mum was having none of it, she tore into her, pretty fiercely. Your Mum asked me to ring you. She has a lot on her plate with your granddad and her own problems. She doesn’t want to deal with a self-centred little brat who needs to grow up. Her words, not mine.”

“What does her mother think about it?” I asked.

“I have no idea son, your mother is round there now, but I don’t know whether it’s about this or something else.”

“Thanks Dad, how is Mum’s father by the way?”

“Out of danger, but they’re keeping him in. I don’t like the man, but I don’t wish him any actual harm. What do you think you’ll do now?”

“I’ll stay over here for a couple of weeks, I’m having driving lessons, then I have to come home for a week for exams at college, then I’ll probably take off down south to be ready for rehearsals.”

“Well, your bedroom is still here son,” he said.

We said our goodbyes and hung up.

I decided that I’d just go down to the hotel restaurant and get a pizza or something for lunch. There weren’t many people in there and for just a fleeting moment, I was a little bit disappointed that nobody recognised me, but I was fairly certain that was just because that sort of distraction would have been welcome.

While I ate I came to a decision, I’d give Cal until eight o’clock to contact me, or I was going to assume that she’d made her mind up that her future didn’t include me. But I did feel that at least I owed it to her mother to let her know what was going on. I finished my Pizza, signed the restaurant bill and went back to my room where I picked up my phone and called Aunt Mary.

“She’s done it again, hasn’t she?” were her first words when she answered, no Hello, David, or even just Hello. She’s done it again.

“It certainly looks that way,” I said.

“Care to tell me from your point of view what’s happened?”