Chapter 2 - Jim, Friday

Drinking at lunch time is such a bad idea! It’s essentially doomed to failure: you either do the smart thing and go after one pint, which leaves you with a sense of unfinished business, or you stay for the rest of the day, at which point it gets really, really messy. You can’t win. There is no happy medium. You just shouldn’t do it. Stick to food or coffee. Casual sex perhaps. Some shopping. But drinking? No no no.
So there I found myself in a pub, waiting for Simon. Inevitably he was late - some crisis with a stapler or something. I didn’t really get the jist of what he was saying. By then I was already most of the way through my first pint, and, having survived the morning on two cups of coffee and three cigarettes, it went straight to my head. Of course the first thing he did was buy me another to apologise for being late, and I was half way through that before the food arrived. Boy, I was flying! Simon was telling me the same old story about how much he hates his job, and I’d just gone into autopilot, nodding my head all the while knowing he loves it and will never leave. He’ll cry like a baby the day he retires, and the sooner he learns to chill out and accept that fact the better.
I’d kind of spaced out and was checking out the pub. Simon likes it because it’s quiet - there’s never any braying young folk to make him scared, whereas I like it because the young barman will sell you dope if you give him a wink. I’m pretty certain that’s not the only thing he’d sell, but I’ve never been curious enough to find out. Lunchtimes are quiet, even on a Friday - a couple of old men in the corner, old enough friends that they can just sit in silence and sip their pints. The young barman is smiling to himself as he texts someone, and two couples wandered in and headed straight into the back bar.
Thankfully the food brought Simon’s monologue to a temporary pause, so I took the chance to change the subject, and started telling him about what I’d done since I’d seen him last. It was only once I started that I realised I’d pretty much drifted through the last few weeks in a stoned haze. If anyone had asked I’d have said I was getting my head together after Maria leaving, but in truth the last thing my head felt like was together. Empty more like. Empty enough that by the time I got to bed I could sleep without thinking about why she’d gone and why I’d been such a dick. Again. Simon had tactfully not mentioned her. They’d never really gotten on anyway, so I doubt he was sorry she’d left. And someone else’s failure kind of makes you feel less bad about your own. That’s probably a bit mean, I doubt he thinks like that at all, but he certainly won’t miss her.
But I do. She’d been fun, and she’d let me be myself. In fact she’d encouraged me to be more like myself. When I’d felt like reining myself in she’d given me a look that said, “go on boy!”, so I had. It was probably that kind of stupid bravo that had finished us in the end. There’s a thin line between confident and cocky. And a thinner one between cocky and being a complete cock. I skipped over those lines, left them way behind and headed straight for fuckwit. Way to go boy.
Food finished I lit another cigarette, trying to blow the smoke away from Simon and save myself from one of his pursed little frowns. Yeah, I’m smoking again. And? We got talking about the weekend. Mine was completely empty, and I hoped it would stay that way. Simon had been invited to a gay club, by one of his friends, who I think meant well but might have been feeling a bit mischievous. He was inevitably tying himself up in knots about it. Should he go or shouldn’t he? Would he be too old? Could he dance? What was the point? If ever a man needed a spliff it was him! I tried the old, “you only live once” tactic, but I got the impression he’d already said ’no’ and was just looking for someone to tell him he’d done the right thing. Silly boy . I wonder if he’s happy?
We ended up agreeing to meet for lunch on Sunday, if nothing else came up. I think we both knew that we wouldn’t, but a back-up plan never hurts. And then we headed back to work, parting awkwardly, too stiff to hug, too drunk to shake hands. We settled for a little shuffling, and failed to look each other in the eye properly. I wonder what people thought when they saw us together? Brothers? Lovers? Strangers? I’m not sure we looked like friends.

Back in the office the desk swayed a little as I sat down at it. Thankfully we had no client meetings, and I managed to get out of a departmental meeting by waving a sheaf of papers about and muttering something about deadlines. I think everyone wanted as brief a meeting as possible, so one less over-opinionated moron was a blessing. I scattered the paper across the desk, then spent the rest of the afternoon chewing thoughtfully on a pencil, whilst frantically emailing everyone I knew to see what I’d missed whilst I’d been out of it at home.
Not much by the sound of it - no major relationship changes, no crises, no major acts of stupidity. All in all my friends were going through a settled phase, which made me feel even more like a fuck-up. You’d think someone would have an affair just to take the heat off me for a bit, but no. The nearest they could get to drama was Alex’s cat going missing, and even then it turned out that the lonely lady next door had ‘borrowed’ him for a few days. Come on guys, try harder!

Five pm sharp I was out of there. With no plans it seemed like a good idea to walk home. The bus would be full of people, tired and smelly from a week at work, trying to work up some excitement for the weekend. The air would do me good, well, it would if I wasn’t smoking as I walked. I deliberately took the long way home - away from the bus route and through the quiet streets lined with nothing but houses. I stopped in at the off licence for a bottle of wine, then spent too long in the Spar looking for food, finally giving up and deciding on a kind of takeaway roulette when I got back. Who wants to cook on a Friday? Who wants to eat on a Friday? Not me, not when I had a little packet from the barman wrapped up in the bottom of my pocket.
But first a bath. Wash the city off me. Wash work off me. Was the fuckwit off me. I stared at the place where the tiles meet the ceiling, hoping that they’d give me a sign. In truth it was more like meditating - focussing on one point until slowly the rest of the world vanished. I didn’t even notice the water get cold, or the cigarette go out in my hand, and I’d have probably stayed there all night if the phone hadn’t of rung. At first I thought it was next door, or upstairs, and when I finally realised it was my phone it was too late - I’d barely managed three damp steps onto the landing before it stopped ringing and the answer machine kicked in. It was Mum, trying to make me feel guilty because I’d not phoned her all week. But how could I phone her and not tell her I was feeling so miserable? But I’d not explained to her about Maria going because I’d never told her she’d arrived. So instead I stood on the landing, dripping over the floor until she hung up, then I headed back to the bathroom, promising myself I’d phone her yet knowing full well that I wouldn’t.