“This is going to be good,” says the toothbrush.
“He stole that move off Hugh Grant in Love, Actually,” says the telly.
In a quiet tone, Nicky says, “I’d like to pick up where we left off, Daisy.”
For a moment, time stands still. Which of course cannot happen in actual nature, but is definitely the kind of thing that occurs in love stories, so one gathers. Daisy’s face has become very serious, her eyes the proverbial saucers.
“Nicky,” she says softly, shaking her head. “You are such a hopeless cunt. You think I’ve been parked in the same place all these years, just waiting for you to come back?”
“Of course not,” he says, undeterred, although funnily enough, in one way, you could say this is exactly what she has been doing.
Nicky tries another expression. Solemn, reflective, with an undertow of melancholy, and perhaps a hint of parsley. I mean, ruefulness. He’s a master of timing, you’ve got to give him that, because he holds the silence for as long as it will bear and then comes out with a corker:
“I’ve been a fool.”
If Daisy’s eyes grew any wider, they would plop from their sockets into her gin and tonic.
“I can’t believe you actually said that!”
And here we see the particular genius of the man. Instead of dissolving in shame, he simply persists, perhaps having discovered at an early age that persistence is as useful as intelligence in achieving one’s desired goal.
“You remember my old pal, Marco? He’s head chef now at a lovely Mediterranean restaurant in Soho. His baby lamb chops…”
He leaves the sentence hanging and does the thing where the eyes narrow, the lips purse and the fingertips of the right hand touch and then spring apart to signify the explosion of mouthfeel, as the food scientists have it.
“The baby lamb chops, Daisy, are To Die For.”
Christ! This fucker knows how to bait Daisy’s hook. The skeptical expression of thirty seconds ago has been loosened and supplanted by a vision (I dare say) of a delectable heap of char-grilled baby lamb chops, speckled with pomegranate seeds, spritzed with fresh lemon and dusted by a final magical sprinkling of herbs.
“What do you say to a spot of dinner?”
“Nicky. I don’t know,” she says. “Whereabouts in Soho?”
A new light appears in the seducer’s eye. If she’s asking for details, the barbs have sunk into the flesh. He senses victory. Time to start reeling her in.
“You still remember that place on the beach in Skiathos?”
“Oh my God, the fried squid!”
She can’t help herself. But you have to hand it to the manipulative swine, his use of euphoric recall is masterly. Having neatly evoked the long-lost summer of first enchantment, he begins tapping numbers into his mobile to make a reservation at his (possibly fictional) friend’s (ditto) establishment. The skepticism and pain that caused Daisy to call him the C-word seems to have vaporized like the morning mist over Koukounaries.
As he waits for the call to be answered, his eyes never leave Daisy’s. And now—we all cheer ironically when it happens; me, the TV, the microwave and the toothbrush—he winks.
“I can’t think how to get a grip on this,” I admit to my colleagues. The man with the shiny teeth has played a blinder.
“Plenty of time for it to go tits up,” says the telly, which is doubtlessly true.
“I think it’s rather beautiful,” says the toothbrush (who may be just a little dazzled by the luminance of the scoundrel’s dentition).
But the smug gleam is fading fast from the Golden Nicky’s expression. Someone has entered the bar and made his way across the room to Daisy’s table. And the sunshine that has broken out across her (notably ample) features must—to the fraudulent personage presently known to the world as Bavin Meurig Shibbles—feel like a kick in the pipes.
Oh. Em. Eff. Gee!
I had no idea that Nicky would stir up so much… STUFF!
To use a metaphor that the drunken poet was fond of, it felt like someone had dropped an oar into the muddy pond and started churning it around.
Something had happened to him since we last met. He’d aged dramatically, or perhaps a better word is hardened. The youthful slenderness had given way to an almost painful thinness, a scrawniness even (too many words here ending in -ness). His blond hair had dulled, there were nicotine stains on his fingers, and the nails weren’t the cleanest. He seemed worn; no longer golden, something tired and adult around the eyes. That irresistible boyish enthusiasm—his excitement about the hugeness of the cosmos!—had been replaced by a kind of worldly knowingness. And where to even start with the RIDICULOUS teeth!?
So all of this stuff on the negative side of the balance sheet naturally made me quite pleased, especially as he seemed to want to smarm his way back into my good books (“I’ve been a fool”!).
But at the same time it was sad, and I felt sorry for him, and the old feelings that he awoke made me (almost) forget how he dumped me for posh Romilly from Cheshire and… I nearly wrote ruined my life. Of course it wasn’t like that; yes, he dumped me, but my life was far from ruined. Nevertheless, somehow along the way I must have got it into my head that he was the One Great Love who no one else quite measured up to.
If you’ve ever had the Hot and Sour soup from Kong’s Kitchen you’ll know what I’m trying to say. There was heat, there was sourness, and there were a few prawns floating about in there too.
(Not that last bit about the prawns.)
So even when I called him a rude word, I didn’t really mean it.
Deep breath. This is what I’m trying to get at:
Yes, Nicky was a hopeless cunt, but he was my hopeless cunt. If you ever fall for someone,
