Wrong Room, Right Guy Read online

  She nodded.

  'And don't even go there, saying you'd warned me, and I knew it would happen. I know you did. I know I completely ignored it, in fact I thought about an awful metaphor earlier about it. Awful, it was.'

  'So I don't need to tell you all that. You know it.'

  'One thing's wrong with your advice, you know.'

  'What's that, I can't wait to hear what you're going to say to improve on it. You've done so well ignoring me all along, haven't you?'

  'That was low. Harsh and low.'

  'True though.' She looked out the corner of her eye.

  'I never actually did manage to get under him.'

  'Not even all that time. All those cosy dinners together round yours, not even a bit of mutual ... '

  'Nothing. Towards the end, I was up to three wanks a day. Every time I saw him I had to empty the old tanks, or a bit of kissing and I'd have, you know.' I looked at my trousers.

  'Disgusting. Revolting. Really?'

  I nodded. 'All that time and I never managed to peel off those retro tracksuit bottoms and see what there was underneath. I thought about it often enough, of course. I imagined what it would be like. Oh yes. But actually, in reality, not just fiction living in my head, not so much.'

  'You must do something. I can't stand to see you moping about all day on your own. What have you got planned for this week?'

  'I'm having my eyes tested on Friday.' Today was Monday.

  'Anything else?'

  'I've built my whole week around it.'

  'What about writing, things to keep you busy. You can't just sit around all day in your pyjamas watching daytime TV. It's not right - a man of your education.'

  'I can actually feel part of my brain slowly draining out through my ears if I watch too much. It's like my brain's giving up on me too.'

  'Can't you write about all this? Isn't this what you lot say is best - the suffering artist, tortured for his art?'

  'I could do with a bit less of the torture and a bit more of the art at the moment.'

  She leant over me, slumped in the chair. 'So do it, write it, make it happen. Don't just mope about here, like a long streak of piss. Come on, chin up.'

  I told her about the agony aunt letters which I was due to write for this week.

  'You kept that one quiet. That's brillo, absolutely amazing. I'm so pleased. Surely someone else's problems are a welcome distraction for you at the moment?'

  I shrugged. 'Haven't written them yet. Don't know.'

  'What else could you do this week? To fill your days.'

  I told her about the monthly column Clara-Bell had wangled for me too, and how she'd suggested I write something about lies in relationships.

  'What you sat here for? You should be in that study, writing. Pouring it into the article. You've got fresh first-hand experience of it. Don't sit here wasting it, use it, earn it, make it work for its money.' She took me by the hand and led me to the study. Turned on my laptop and the light, waited while it fired itself up. She clicked a new Word document and told me to type the title - Lies and their effect on a relationship.

  She kissed my cheek. 'I'm going to make some coffee. When I come back I want the first paragraph done. Or I'm not leaving.' And she was gone.

  She returned with the coffee and I had a few bits written down. She stared at the two paragraphs on my laptop screen. 'Right, you're off. I'll leave you to it. I'll call you tonight to see how much you got down. And I want an update about the letters, too. And your proper writing, as you call it.'

  After a few hundred words about lies in a relationship, I felt ready to write the letter to Darren. I opened a new Word document, took a sip of strong coffee - Lucy really did mean business to keep me alert - and started typing.

  Chapter 21

  At the writers group we were going around the room, each sharing what we'd written recently. Clara-Bell was working on a new novel - a glitzy saga set in St Tropez and New York involving call girls, a mistress and a man who owned his own private jet, a passion for women, and drugs, and was also particularly well endowed in the trouser department. It was called Diving In.

  Clara-Bell stood, peered through her half moon glasses, shuffled her sheaf of paper and began to read: 'Claudette lowered her enormous Gucci sunglasses from her head to her nose, so she could take in the sight before her: Markie Manray. Markie Manray wore a tiny pair of golden swimming trunks through which Claudette could easily make out the entire length of his most talked about feature. She licked her lips. She knew she must have him.

  Claudette closed her eyes and savoured the image until a shadow blocked her sun. She opened her eyes and Markie stood next to her sun lounger, dripping from his recent dip in the Olympic-sized swimming pool.

  'I suppose we should look at those papers while we're here.' He pointed to a pile of papers resting under an iPad on a nearby table.

  'Of course, whatever you think best.' She smiled and allowed herself a moment's pause on his tanned chest, with damp hair falling in an artistic pattern over his pectoral muscles. She was here as his accountant, and she'd better not forget it. It was just that this was the first time he'd mentioned anything even remotely work related since she'd arrived two days ago.

  'A bit of genning up before the board tomorrow. You are ready for that, aren't you?' He flicked through the papers and adjusted himself in his sparkly swimming trunks.

  'Oh yes. I'm well prepared.'

  'Good girl. I'll see what I have for good girls like you, inside. After the figures.' His smile shone in the sun.

  She picked up her notepad and sat at the table as Markie leafed through the papers. She wondered how much longer she'd have to wait until she got a look at the legendary Manray manhood for herself.' Clara-Bell removed her glasses and put the paper down. 'Such fun to write. I get the characters to do all the naughty things I never did when I was younger.'

  Olive had written ten hand written pages about a school audition in which one boy found out he had magical powers. The main character was called Harry Potter. Clara-Bell asked if she'd heard of fan fiction. She hadn't. Clara-Bell explained what it was and how it was a great way to start writing as you had an already made world and characters to write about. 'Well, who'd have thought it. There you go. Do you think anyone would be interested in it?' Olive asked, leafing through her pages, looking at Clara-Bell.

  'Not unless you disguise who it's really about a bit more. But no writing is ever wasted. You've written it, and it'll be better than what you wrote before. It's like any craft, the more you practice, and do it, the better you get. Who's next? Simon, what have you to share?'

  I explained that I hadn't done anything I could share, since I'd been too depressed after the night the lie was revealed.

  Shirley jumped in with 'Isn't that when you're meant to do your best stuff? That's what we talked about last time isn't it?'

  'Nothing I could share though.'

  Clara-Bell walked round the table and took my notebook from me. 'Not any ideas you could talk through? No rough plans? Nothing, absolutely nothing?'

  'I did write the letter.'

  'What letter?' Someone said.

  'To Darren. To apologise. And I think the character who wrote it would send it. He wouldn't just write it and keep it to himself.'

  'The character?' Clara-Bell asked.

  'In the story, the main character falls out with the Darren character because he lied, so he writes a letter to apologise. But he wouldn't just write it and leave it at that, he'd send it. He's poured his heart and soul into the letter - why he lied, why he started to lie, why he couldn't end the lie, how much he's fallen for the Darren character, everything, it's all there.'

  'I see. What about you, not the main character, what about you, Simon Payne? What does he do next?'

  I didn't know. I wasn't sure where Simon Payne ended and the main character of my story began any more. I wasn't sure when I was doing things for new experiences, in aid of research for the story, and when I was
doing things as myself. I felt like I was a character in my own life story, which was in pursuit of research for the story I was writing. The story I'd gone to the wrong room the second time to start writing. Only now, it was much bigger than just the research for the story. It was about my life. I'd gone into the wrong room, hoping to find an interesting story, some material for my fiction, and ended up finding someone I wanted to be with, someone I found it hard to live without.

  I'd read about some famous diarist explaining this effect - how the act of recording one's life by its very nature, changed one's life. It's a bit like how putting a camera in front of a situation, even a real life situation, changes that real situation into something which is being recorded and documented.

  Kenneth Williams, who kept a diary for more than forty years, used to say to his friends as a threat, 'You'll be in my diary!'

  I looked around the room, everyone was waiting for me to reply to Clara-Bell's question. I'd been miles away, in another universe within my head, but miles away. 'I don't know. I don't know what he does next! Because things I've done for the story, for research, have come back and affected my life, my real life. This little project to get some interesting material has had real life repercussions, which I'm still having to live with. It's not a game any more. If I'd have known this, I wouldn't have gone back to the wrong room, I'd have left it well alone. I could have done some internet research instead.' I put my head in my hands and began to cry softly.

  Clara-Bell's voice filled the room. 'Use that - what you're feeling now - use that to write.'

  Chapter 22

  Article for Ladies' Weekly magazine - Mary Martyn

  Lies and their effect on a relationship.

  I once heard from an academic who studied trust in the workplace, that 'trust comes on foot, but leaves on horseback' which is basically saying that it takes years, months, decades to build trust with someone, and it can all be dashed in an instant with one action.

  Trust isn't something you can add like an extra course at a restaurant. You either have trust in your relationship - running throughout the relationship - or you don't.

  A friend of mine who used to stay away for work quite often said that trust in a relationship was the most powerful antidote to her cheating. 'My husband trusts me implicitly. That's a lot to have on my shoulders, and I don't want to lose it, so I will never cheat on him.'

  Trust can mean different things to different people in their relationships. It may mean not cheating on one another. It may mean not telling the other person if you have cheated, as long as your agreement is for that, and to keep it a secret. It may mean being able to ask your partner to do something, and knowing it will be done, with no further nagging. Whatever sort of trust you have in your relationship is important for the two people involved.

  At the start of a relationship you start that slow journey on foot, to building a level of trust together. If, further down the line, when the relationship is more developed, something shows that the assumptions made, the trust which established the relationship, wasn't in fact true, that can have irrevocable damage on the relationship, as a friend found out,

  My friend began her relationship, hiding an important fact about her from her new partner. To preserve my friend's anonymity, I will change the fact, but you just need to understand it was an important fact, which had bonded them together at the start. My friend met her partner at a group which was interested in Star Trek. But it turned out, she had a rudimentary knowledge from the internet, and had never seen one Star Trek film.

  I knew the Star Trek bit was a bit tenuous, but didn't want to include the real reason because it was too close, too sore for me to write about.

  I re-read my letter to Darren which explained why I'd lied so badly, and for so long to him.

  Dear Darren,

  My writers group advised me to send you a letter, to put it all down, what happened, in which order, and why, so you can understand why I did what I did. All I ask is for you to take five minutes to read this and if you decide to never talk to me again, I know I've tried.

  'But Sir, this Shakespeare geezer, he don't write, like normal. Why we gotta read his stuff, Sir?'

  Now, it was an ordinary lunch break time on an ordinary Tuesday in September. The start of another ordinary term at Fiddlers Hamlet High School. I had been telling Lucy, my friend and fellow teacher, how I didn't understand that the students spent all day texting each other, during the lessons, after lessons, before lessons, but they still didn't get the importance of reading. The terminal meeting that evening was the final straw for me.

  1. How can we be more? - I wasn't sure what more it was about

  2. Learning units -what we were meant to call the pupils

  I knew I had to go to the writing group Lucy had been nagging me about for months.

  At the village hall where the group met, I walked into the wrong room, asking 'Is this the writers group?' I made eye contact with a particularly fit looking yet weathered looking man in his late thirties, wearing a grey tracksuit.

  'Na mate, that's next door.' He smiled, revealing a gap where the front teeth should have been and a glinty gold filling in the other side of his mouth.

  'Sorry, my mistake.' I noticed a blackboard propped against the wall which read Cocaine Anonymous - Hope Faith Courage, and then a number of steps written underneath.

  This gave me an idea for how to get some more realistic, interesting things to write about in my stories. I'll change names and use bits of the stories in my writing. No harm done. Simple. That decision was both the best and worst of my life, because it was to change my life irrevocably, and to damage someone else's life I would care for very much.

  I returned to the group, and was surprised by how friendly and open they all were, but when I thought about it, I realised that was exactly the point of groups like this.

  I'd noticed a man on the other side of the circle of chairs. He had a black Adidas tracksuit with red stripes, white trainers, a black hoodie and a grey scarf pulled up around his face. He sat with his legs apart and the trousers had ridden up slightly revealing dark hairy legs. There was something about his look, which was more than just sportswear, it had a retro, curated, deliberate feel about it. Then I noticed his lips. He had blowjob lips.

  His real name was Darren, and when he opened his mouth, I felt a little bit of my heart burst. He had a really authentic Essex accent - none of your mockney 'I grew up in Hertfordshire but sound like I sell apples and pears in Bow' - this was a good old fashioned Essex accent.

  I leant back on the chair and allowed his voice to wash over me, and to become swept up in his narrative arc. I began to imagine what his narrative arc looked like, then realised that made no sense whatsoever, not even in a double entendre, so instead focussed on his story.

  He said I had a bit of the Danny Dyer about me.

  My heart leapt in my chest and my stomach did somersaults. I still didn't know if he was or wasn't though.

  After a bit of padding around one another, and a conversation about the pronoun game, I established he was batting for my team.

  Once I knew that, I knew he might be interested in me, so it became harder and harder to just stop going to the group.

  I was so into him that he took me to a classic car show and, against all odds, I actually enjoyed myself. I remember sitting in the soft seventies upholstery of his car and thinking I was starting to fall for him.

  That's why I was confused he didn't want to take it to the next stage, to stay over at mine all the times I invited him round for dinner. Every time he made his excuses and left. Leaving me tenting my jeans and in need of some relief.

  He asked me what I'd really like to do if I wasn't a teacher, and was fascinated when I talked about what I'd tried to write at that point.

  It was only since meeting him, since having something interesting to write about, that I was able to write. I had gone to the group for stories, for ideas, and ended up finding someone I thought I could s
pend the rest of my life with.

  I couldn't bear the lies. My original reason for coming to the group was always in the back of my mind, so I knew I had to tell him.

  So I told him.

  And that was when it all went wrong. Something I had viewed as pretty innocent and harmless really offended Darren. He said he wished me, my little stories and the autobiography were happy together, because he didn't want to see me again.

  I tried to keep him, to reason with him, but I realised this was pointless. That isn't love.

  The worst thing he said was that my lies meant he wanted to immediately relapse, to go back to using cocaine. 'A big fat line of lovely white powdery coke,' he said he wanted. That phrase had been floating around my mind since that moment.

  I had never wanted to hurt him, or any of his friends from the group, yet my lies and insensitivity had done exactly that. For that I would always be sorry.

  I want, not to ask for your forgiveness, because I think what I did is pretty unforgivable, but just to let me know you were all right, that you hadn't relapsed, because I don't think I'd be able to forgive myself for that.

  Yours sincerely,

  Simon Payne :-)

  I debated whether to put kisses and hugs, or just hugs, or just kisses at the end. After much to-ing and fro-ing, I settled on the smiley face. In my mind it showed friendship, but in the actual letter I'd explained how much I felt for him.

  I drove it round Darren's house on the other side of Loughton, and posted it through the letterbox. As I walked back to my car the front door opened, and a short woman in a grey tracksuit and white trainers stood by the door. 'It's not a flyer is it, love?'