The three of them were ID-ed at the vodka bar, despite Jack’s intervention of making John wear his blazer, which made him look a young student, instead of his hobo coat, which had the inconvenient habit of making him look his age. Jack, Annie and John drank cocktails at the Raincheck Bar, and then moved on to Garfunkles. It was a venue preferred by the students at their college, however unless you were there on a students’ night, drinks tended to be ridiculously expensive, especially to the cash-strapped skint Jack, who was always trying to assume the role of a wealthy minor-aristocrat. Although, it must be said, he did not drink a lot that evening, not at Garfunkles anyway.
As tradition demanded, Annie sat with John, and Jack alone, facing. As tradition also demanded that it should be Annie that spoke first, ‘You brought us out for a reason, didn’t you, Jack? You said you would explain everything to us tonight.’
‘Would you like the long story or the short story?’ Jack asked.
‘Long,’ both Annie and John replied. John had his hand now loosely groping Annie’s right breast, but his eyes were very much on Jack.
‘I’m warning you, it is very long.’
‘We want to know everything,’ said Annie, sounding almost cross.
‘I first met Celia in the summer of Year 6 (1999); she was wearing a purple velveteen roll neck jumper and a pair of lightly flared blue jeans (I’d guess size 10) and, of course, those boots I’m told her parents made for her (if the rumour’s true, she hated them, and pretended to lose them, in someone else’s tutor room). I was instantly attracted to her magnetic personality, and her dramatic talent was obvious to me. She smiled upon a rare occasion, preferred to frown; yet, I was smitten.
In September of that year, we began rehearsals for ‘The Butterfly’s evil Spell’ – I was delighted to have been cast as the lead, but grieved to find that Osyth had a two-line walk-on part. Anyway, why am I telling you this, it is irrelevant to all but myself. I continued this fanciful charade for about three or four years, on and off, though rather more on than off. She hated me. Hated me always. There is a mirror outside my room that is testament to this. In Year 8 (2001) a whole youth theatre devised show revolved around her – not that she knew it. I played a prince, smitten with a woman, Colette – Celia – and so murdered everyone else. That is how deep my feelings for her were. There is a picture on my wall of a princess – that is her.
However, by Year 9/10 there was someone else on my mind. Kier. He was perhaps the most beautiful person in the world – by now Celia was a wide size 12, with legs that someone described as ‘tree trunks’. In Year 8, I began masturbating and looking at porn on the Internet. I Year 9 I began torturing myself over these two people I idolised, but could never have. I think it was in Year 10 that I gave Kier a Valentine’s card – but he never worked out from whom it was. Also, it is not hard to guess that Angela fancied me in those days. Then there is Mannon. I’ve been married to her by proxy twice, I think, our parents have planned what they’ll wear to our weddings – but whenever we tried to go out, something got in our way. Angela. I decided to lose Mannon to keep Angela, and it is a decision I now regret. I often find myself hating Angela. Moreover, I am sure that she hates me.
Then, sometime last year, I had a crush on Rory. It is unhealthy, I know, to fancy a boy, mid-puberty, in my little sister’s year – but my heart is a heart after all. Then in the autumn, there was Kaveh, Sophie – but you don’t see where this is going, do you? To be bisexual is a curse; people will hate you – gay or straight – and call you selfish or a user. However, for you yourself it is worse, far worse, for you know that you will never be truly happy with anyone. There is no one person for you. Perhaps, if you are very fortunate, very lucky, there is a pair, a couple. But I doubt it. And so, that brings me to you. For as long as I have known you, Annie, I have not fancied you, almost. In addition, John, as soon as I first heard you speak, I was instantly attracted to you. But I did not love you, not at all.
And after California, everything changed. Having not seen anyone for almost two months, I returned, and it seemed, almost, that the world had been turned upside down. Instead of a gimpish geek was a svelte young man, and instead of a two-dimensional sports girl was a very much 3-D woman. So, foolishly, I fell for John. And, unbeknown to me, so did Annie. Saturday September 27th, one of my sixteenth birthday parties: I came so close to kissing you, John. Too close – I felt your flinch. Friday November 21st: an evening I promised John I would never remind him of, so I won’t. Saturday December 6th: we sat much the same as this, and you listened to me, like this. Moreover, Annie realised I fancied John, and said she would never go out with me. By now, I was in love with both of you, and knew you both wanted one another, but were too afraid to ask. I could have spent the rest of my life in that moment.
Tuesday December 9th: I tell Mannon everything, and I realise that it is with her that I am meant, or at least have the chance to spend with the rest of my life. Therefore, I set about trying to forget you both. Monday December 15th: the Christmas cards you receive are the last time I say ‘I love you’. Monday December 29th: I watch you both pull on my bed, the same bed that you then sleep in: in your black boxers. So now I need a new bed. Tuesday December 30th: buy a new bed. No trace of either of you on it. Wednesday December 31st: New Year’s Eve. I have decided that I will propose to Emma. And so I pull Sam – perhaps the only male I ever will. Thursday January 8th: with you two out of my mind, I propose.
Mannon says yes, and takes the ring. Friday January 8th: Mannon says no, and returns the ring. I go to Jess’ gay bar to reinject men back into my life. I then proceed to hide from school people over the weekend. And now I’m over you.’
So time during the above, the vaguely Italianate Carlos had entered and joined the three miserable lovers. Jack did not mind, indeed, it was Carlos himself, who, had solved the secret of Jack’s little black book, and thus worked out the love triangle on New Year’s Eve, but had been too drunk to remember it properly; this meaning that the secret had remained so until this evening, over two weeks on.
John’s arm was still around Annie, but now it seemed that it was there for support and solidarity than pleasure. Jack touched the pages of his little black book.
‘Except, you probably know most of that – you were there for a lot of it. So, let me tell you about what you do not know. Things that upset you upset me – what I am most concerned with is your happiness – as I can never be happy with either of you. What I have done to upset you upsets me more. Annie, my mother did say that you were trying to use me to break up with John. Of course that is not true, how could it be? And the fact that you thought I’d said my mum thought you were trying to break me and John up makes even less sense. I have only ever had two deep conversations with my mother about our school. Once in Year 7 and one this year. In neither of them have I mentioned you. She meant nothing by what she said – she knows nothing about how I feel, how I felt. You two, and perhaps Mannon, are the only ones who do. It was just because she used us three in her equation that it threw me. I was still trying to forget you both, get over you both. John, the words we exchanged yesterday also grieved me – not because you were rude about me, but because of the derogative things that you said about your girlfriend. Because I love you both, I cannot bear you to hate one another. It is selfish, I know, but it is the truth. You two are my luckiest friends. You are also my happiest friends. You will never break up, because neither of you would dare do it. Tomorrow is your one-month anniversary – so here is to you, and your happy future, Annie and John.
I think I might leave now.’
‘No, don’t go.’ It was John who spoke, and it surprise Jack. Who re-relaxed back into his high-backed, cushioned chair; and he did not go.
With the hedonistic abandon that is not unusual in young people, John and Carlos had returned to Jack’s house for the night. A decision, that with hindsight, they would, perhaps, have not made. With thanks due to the excess and frivolities of Christmas, there was more than the usual amount of alcohol at Jack’s house for consummation. In the lofty heights of Jack’s own room, seldom visited by his kin, the three of them lay sprawled beside bottles of brandy, sherry, Babycham, syrup and port. In addition, the personal requisite of another friend of John’s, which had only earlier that day been discovered by a horrified mother, had meant that they were with a larger amount of weed than had been expected, or indeed, even dreamed. Jack had only ever smoked a joint before in the company of strangers, but now they were good friends. Carlos rolled two novice joints, and the three of them lay half propping themselves up on their elbows, passing it around like a tribal pipe of peace, toking on it, and summoning the gods of divine pleasure. Jack wondered, and thought it strange how the three of them had ended up there. To begin with, Annie had had to be walked to a point of collection at a reasonable time, but during this preamble to Laura Place, Carlos had disappeared, prompting the two remaining companions to search a dull and unendearing house party held by a number of younger pupils from their college. From here they had moved towards Queen Square and Trinity Church, phoned worried parents and reassure them; then a visit to a firmly closed 24-hour Sainsbury’s, and watched, with an almost morbid fascination, the shelf stackers busy at work in earnest. The remainder of the walk to Jack’s home had led them over the land of the undesirable characters in Bath, skirting the edge-lands of Twerton. Here it had led them, to a party of hazy smoke, dim lights, and the somewhat removed melodies of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers playing out from a once new Hi-Fi. Both Jack and John had stripped out of their formal eveningwear, and replaced pressed shirts and fitted trousers with Jack’s jeans and t-shirts. The flash of flesh had, for Jack at least, been almost too tempting. Heavily stoned, Jack and John tumbled into bed together.
‘I am so sorry, Annie, so very sorry. I was too far gone; lost in a realm of smoke and sound. I really was not thinking I clearly, you must believe me when I say that I would never ever do anything to hurt you. Either of you. We returned to my house after we had left you, my mother did not care, did not know … no one knows what really happened. We had too much to drink and too much to smoke. John is … he is so magnetic in a silent, smouldering way. When he smiles, he lights up your life, and you could spend a lifetime studying his eyes whilst running your fingers through his hair. He is just, well, you must know, he is yours. Moreover, he has been for over a month now. It is everything he does, and everything about him. He exudes a certain something, I do not know, and he’s caught us, he’s caught us both. He is an adored, as indeed you both are, and I am an adorer. Fate dictates that I can do no less. He chose to sleep in my bed; it was not my intention, although it was what I hoped. I swear he did not initiate it, I must have done, but he did not rebuke me. It was, it must have been that he encouraged it, I do not know how. He is just like that: John is your boyfriend, you must understand that. The point is, I can remember everything, I must have proved that to you by now; and the truth is, I cannot remember what happened that night, not all of it. All that I can do is try to make some logical sense of it - except that it defies reason! But then, I suppose, cannabis does that to oneself. Carlos remembers nothing, nothing at all because he was asleep. As for John, I do not know, I am scared to ask him; but he treats me in such a way as if nothing has happened. Nothing at all. Nevertheless, I know that something did, I just cannot work it out. My last memory, and even that I cannot declare with honesty, is I stroking his face, where his stubble grows, and he, he smiling, the way that only John can smile. After that, I truly remember nothing until I woke up, my legs almost entwined with his. Oh, Annie, I just cannot understand what happened, or why. I’m sorry, Annie, you must believe at least that.’
Annie chose her words with care, and spoke with deliberation, saying, ‘Jack, I do not think that I can ever talk to you again.’
