Page 56 of The Notecard
‘I love you, Keri Marie Elizabeth Braithwaite, with all of my heart,’ says Hugh.
The door to the bathroom unlocks and the door opens. Keri is standing there with the biggest smile on her face and tears glistening in her eyes. We all stop for a moment and then Keri says.
‘I love you too!’
Then she screams a loud, high-pitched scream, and launches herself at Hugh. She jumps on him, wraps her legs around him, and starts kissing him as though he’s been away to war. I dash into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I hear Keri telling Hugh that she loves him over and over again. Hugh says it too, and it’s such a wonderfully heart-warming moment. I’m so happy for Keri. I really hope this is the one that sticks. The one that puts Pret A Manger back on the map.
We’re in the living room a short while later. Keri has finally settled down and Hugh is preparing for his big moment. Keri looks as pleased as punch. She’s glowing. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was pregnant.
‘I have a new bit I might do tonight,’ says Hugh.
‘I’d love to hear it,’ I say, sitting down at the desk.
‘Just give me a moment,’ says Hugh, as he gets into character. ‘Sex changes, doesn’t it? I’m twenty-nine now, and it’s different than it used to be. When I was eighteen, it was amazing. I literally couldn’t get enough. When you’re doing it, you feel it all over your body. You ache with passion. Remember that ache? Now I just ache. When I was eighteen, and I’d orgasm it was like Fuuuucckk! Now it's like Fuuuucckk, why do my knees hurt? And my back. And my balls, the same balls with the artisan pasta inside, ache like they used to ache when I didn’t have sex. I have constant blue balls these days. I think my own body is literally trying to cock block me. I spend half of my life now Googling medical symptoms related to my genitals. Like, is it weird that my urine smells like Ribena? If you’re interested, yes it is.’
Hugh finishes, and Keri and I are both in hysterics.
‘Brilliant,’ I say.
‘You’re going to kill it,’ says Keri.
My phone beeps with a message. I look down and it’s from Laura.
Me outside the Friends building with a huge slice of proper NY pizza! Could I BE anymore New York than this?
The photo comes shortly after. It’s Laura outside the building they used for the television show ‘Friends’. She’s holding a slice of pizza and looking thrilled. In most worlds, this would be a good thing. A text from my sister on her pre-wedding honeymoon to New York. The reality is that I sent her almost the same photograph when I went there with James. I love Friends, and I couldn’t wait to do the unofficial Friends tour of New York. We visited Bloomingdales where Rachel worked, we found coffee shops just like Central Perk, and we found the building they used for the show. The building where Monica, Rachel, Joey, and Chandler lived. I took a photo outside with a slice of New York pizza. James took the photo and then we went to a nearby Irish pub and got drunk. Laura is recreating that, and all it does is remind me of James. I don’t know if she’s trying to hurt my feelings, but she’s being insensitive. But that’s Laura. Sensitivity has never been her strong suit.
I get up and head off to my bedroom to get ready for tonight. It’s only a comedy club, and I’m not going to get dressed up, but I can’t go in sweatpants, t-shirt, and a sports bra. Keri and Hugh are staring lovingly into each other’s eyes. From locked in the bathroom having an existential crisis, to full-blown lovesick, Keri’s U-turn is dramatic even for her.
Nick
Michael has nipped back upstairs for a moment to get another bottle of wine. Michael is quite the wine enthusiast. He has lots of wine in his flat. He explained that about ten years ago he quit everything else except wine. No cigarettes or alcohol except wine. Hence his large collection. I buy wine to drink. I buy wine and then I drink it. I certainly don’t buy wine with the intention of just keeping it for an occasion. I can’t even imagine the decadence of that. I’m sitting on the sofa when Mum plops down next to me.
‘So, Ibiza?’ I say.
‘Oh yes, I’m quite excited. I haven’t been abroad for years. I went to Belgium five years ago with Joan, but that wasn’t much of a holiday.’
‘Not with Joan,’ I say, and Mum laughs.
‘Oh, stop it, Joan’s fine. She’s just Joan.’
Joan is a friend of Mum’s. She’s incredibly bossy and has to be in charge of everything. Joan organised a long weekend in Belgium for her and Mum. When she got back, Mum said it was like a military operation. Every second of the day was written down and accounted for. Mum was exhausted when she got back.
‘But Ibiza for two weeks is a proper holiday,’ I say. ‘Sun, sand, sea.’
I don’t say ‘the other S’ for obvious reasons.
‘Your father never liked the beach. He didn’t enjoy getting water and sand everywhere. Do you remember the holiday to Portugal?’
I shake my head.
‘You were young, maybe five. I wanted to go somewhere warm and your father finally relented. He was so busy then. I booked us seven nights in Portugal. Oh, it was glorious, Nick. We didn’t have many holidays like that over the years.’
‘There was Tenerife. When Rob came too. I loved that holiday.’
‘Me too,’ says Mum fondly.
Rob and I were fourteen when Mum and Dad took us to Tenerife. They were worried I would be bored on my own, and so they offered to bring Rob along. It was incredible. Rob and I on holiday together in Tenerife. There were teenage girls at the hotel, and we could drink alcohol. Technically, we couldn’t, but Dad would let us drink a couple of pints of shandy each night. We thought it was very sophisticated. Two shandies on foreign soil. We were the height of cool. For the record, we talked to but didn’t manage to kiss any of the girls at the hotel. Rob got close one night with a girl called Amy from Wigan, but he was so drunk from his two shandies that he ended up missing her face and planting his face into her shoulder instead. I think he kissed her ear on the way through. That was as near as we came to romance in Tenerife.
