‘Yeah or “knock over Barclays for us or something, will ya, you loopy cunt”,’ Fat Paul chipped in.
‘You don’t think Colin would smell a rat then?’ Paddy asked.
‘Well, I don’t know, I’m not his psychiatrist, am I?’
‘I’m not telling him to do anything like that,’ Hazel objected.
‘Well, look, we can at least tell him to fuck off, can’t we? Get him off our backs. You phone him up, pretend you’re Jerry, tell him you’re not interested or that you’re getting married or something, and tell him if he don’t like it he can go and chuck himself in the river. It’s got to be worth a go, ain’t it? Even if it’s just for a laugh.’
‘No, I’m not doing it.’
‘All right, sod you then. Jackie, do you want to do us a favour?’ but she wasn’t having any of it either. Nor was Mary or Susie or Wendy. I thought Mary or definitely Wendy would’ve done it, but girl are like that, aren’t they? As soon as one of them puts the kibosh on something none of them want to know. It was the same at school; you’d have one perfectly normal, decent bloke in class and some girl would take a disliking to him and put it about that he smelled or was covered in fleas or something, and that would be it. No other bird in school would ever talk to or sit next to the poor bastard again, no matter how much they sympathised with his plight because he was Smelly Dirty Flea Bag and to show him anything other than vicious, joyful contempt would be to see them labelled Mrs Smelly Dirty Flea Bag. And no girl wants that.
Incidentally, answers on a postcard if you can guess what my nickname was at school.
We didn’t phone Colin in the end but he kept us on our toes for a few weeks. In the absence of Jerry, it was me and Wendy he was after. We were the only people he’d dealt with in the office and the only people he seemed to remember. Matt, Hasseem, Fat Paul and Hazel all reported passing him in the street without him taking any notice of them so this seemed to confirm things for us.
We tried the Old Bill again and Peter set to getting a restraining order drafted, but Colin was still spotted here and there.
I was dreading running into him outside and so was Wendy, probably more so than me. People started seeing him so much that it got to the point where the pair of us would stay behind after everyone else left work so that they could give us a buzz and warn us if they saw him hanging about on their way to the Tube. A couple of times me and Wendy had to leave by the side entrance to avoid Colin, who would be lurking around up the street.
In a funny sort of way, it brought me and Wendy closer together. There’d been an unexplained frosty antagonism between us ever since day one, but our shared plight melted away much of the ill-feeling and we actually started getting on together. We’d sit and chat together around the office while we waited for the all clear, then walk each other to the Tube Station and see that the other got there all right. Occasionally we’d even smile and wish each other a ‘good morning’ when appropriate. What was it that Humphrey Bogart said? It was the start of a beautiful friendship.
I immediately wondered if I could bone her.
At the end of the day I decided not to bother. Nothing seemed to piss girls off more than me having a crack at them, particularly the ones I got along with (not a long list). I think they saw it as evidence that I was only actually interested in them for one thing all along, which is so fundamentally untrue. It’s a good job blokes don’t think like this otherwise you’d never be able to ask one of your mates if he fancied a beer or a game of golf for fear of him getting all upset with you and accusing you of only pretending to like him so that you could have someone to drink or play golf with.
Anyway, like I said, I didn’t try it on with Wendy but I settled for pencilling her down as a possible Christmas Party target. It would keep, particularly if I kept on making an effort to play the non-threatening mate.
*
It was a Wednesday and no one had phoned. Me and Wendy were sitting around the office waiting to get the all-clear from fat Paul but we hadn’t heard a word in 25 minutes. The Tube Station was only ten minutes away too and he knew we were hanging on for his call. This was typical of recent behaviour from the lads. This would be the fourth time no one had phoned us back and it was starting to piss us off.
‘Oh, I forgot.’
‘My battery ran out.’
‘I thought Paddy was phoning you.’
‘I thought you said don’t ring.’ etc.
In fairness to them, they always rang in when they did see Colin so I guess I could understand it slipping their minds when they didn’t – especially as half the week they were usually plastered.
‘What do you want to do, give it another ten minutes or shall we just fuck off now?’
‘Let’s fuck off now,’ I said.
We had a peep around the front door and up the street and the coast looked clear – well, it was full of prostitutes, crack addicts and angry piss-smelling drunks but there was no sign of Colin so we headed for the Tube.
‘We should go for a drink one of these nights,’ Wendy suggested.
‘Yeah, that would be nice,’ I agreed. ‘Where do you fancy? We could just go to The Abbot or something?’
‘Hmm, maybe not. Not if that bloody idiot’s going to keep hanging around, I wouldn’t want to bump into him on the way home afterwards. There’s a few nice pubs up my way though, if you didn’t mind travelling up to North London,’ she said, giving me a look that had me rearranging the lie of my pants without using my hands.
‘Yeah that’s not a bad idea,’ I told her. I lived way down south and she knew it. There was no way I’d be expected to face an hour-long Tube journey at half eleven when we would both be hammered, what with her place being just around the corner. ‘We could make it tonight if you want?’ I said, suddenly keen as Colman’s.
‘No, I’m afraid I can’t, Liverpool’s playing at home tonight,’ she replied.
‘Oh,’ I said, suddenly understanding. ‘Urgh!’
‘What? No, no, not like that. I mean Liverpool really are playing at home tonight – in the Champions’ League. It’s on the telly and I’m off around my brother’s to watch it.’
‘Oh right, yeah I forgot, I’m meant to be watching that myself. Maybe tomorrow then?’
‘Yeah, sounds good,’ she said and smiled. This was great. I was going to get to shag Wendy and that was a definite cert. She had quite a cute body too. Fairly short, nice big knockers, blonde hair. As we walked along together I tried to conjure up a mental image of what she looked like in the buff and immediately realised I was going to have to give myself the old one-two as soon as I got home this evening. In the movies, blokes take cold showers when they have thoughts like these. In real life, they smash themselves off into a sock. At least in my real life they did.
Maybe it was because I had all of this going on in my mind that I didn’t hear someone shouting after me from up the street. That and the fact that they weren’t shouting my name. They were shouting Don’s.
‘Don! Don! Slow down. Hang on a second, I want to speak to you! Don!’
It took a good few seconds of hearing this phrase shouted over and over again, combined with the slap slap slap of rapidly approaching feet before I was jerked back to reality. I almost broke my back spinning around to see Colin charging up the street towards me and Wendy. My heart screamed in my chest and the chewing gum dropped from my mouth as I saw the reds of his eyes closing fast.
‘SHIT! Fucking leg it!’ I yelled at Wendy and sped off down the road, leaving her for dead (in every sense of the word).
Wendy screamed in panic and sprinted off as fast as her high heels could carry her – not very far as it turned out. She managed about half a dozen paces before her stilettos got the better of her and she went tumbling tits-first into a discarded kebab. Not that Colin seemed to notice; he went straight on past her and after me like a man on a mission.