All About Us. Tom Ellen

memories and in-jokes – we’d have anything in common at all. But right now it feels nice to slip back into that tried-and-tested role play – like pulling on an old jumper or something.

      Harv starts rambling on about work – he does something in social media, though I’ve never been exactly sure what – and I suddenly want to tell him everything. I want to spill my guts about Daphne and Mum and the messages from Alice, and how I’m starting to feel like my whole life has frozen on screen and I’ve no idea which combination of keys will reboot it. But I don’t know how to even start that conversation. I’ve known Harv fifteen years – he was my best man, for God’s sake – but we never really talk about stuff like that. I don’t think we ever did.

      When I overhear Daff speaking to her female friends I’m always amazed at the sheer range of topics they cover. They can get from small talk to deep-and-meaningful within seconds. Whereas when I went on holiday last year with Harv and a couple of other mates, we spent all four days testing each other’s knowledge of football and films and nineties hip hop. I’m not complaining; it was brilliant. I guess women see their friends as profound, complex human beings, while men see theirs as walking quiz machines.

      Still, I’m half a pint of Guinness down and Harv has paused to look at his phone, so I decide to give it a go.

      ‘Yeah, thing is, actually, Harv, I’m sort of feeling a bit … down at the moment, mate.’

      He looks up at me. For some reason – possibly to cushion its emotional bluntness – I’ve delivered this statement in a comedy Scouse accent. I have never even been to Liverpool.

      ‘Ah, don’t be down, mate,’ Harv says, mimicking my Steven Gerrard twang.

      ‘Well … I am a bit,’ I reply, still inexplicably Liverpudlian.

      ‘Ah, mate …’ He sips his drink. ‘Don’t be.’

      This isn’t really going anywhere. This is just two men having the world’s dullest conversation in an accent neither of them can pull off.

      But I suddenly, desperately, want to find a way to actually talk to him. Because it’s too much, keeping all this stuff locked up in my head. It feels like a dam is about to burst somewhere inside me, and fifteen years’ worth of suppressed emotions are about to stream out onto the table between us.

      I’m mentally scrambling about for a decent inroad to this outpouring when Harv smirks and shoves his phone in my face.

      ‘Look at this … Honestly, Mourinho is such a dick.’

      I scan the news story, in which Mourinho does, to be fair, come off quite dickishly. Harv slips his phone back into his pocket and grins. ‘OK, random one: d’you reckon, off the top of our heads, we could name every World Cup winner from 1930 on?’

      I stamp a smile across my face, and manage to shove down all the sadness and guilt and grief that was about to come spilling out of my mouth. ‘I reckon we could give it a go,’ I say.

      He thumps the table. ‘Right. I’ll get another round in first. Although technically, it’s your turn …’

      I hand him a tenner and watch as he squeezes through the crowd towards the bar.

      And that’s when I hear a gravelly chuckle from over my shoulder: ‘Unlucky there, my friend. You were so close …’

Chapter Three

      I turn around to see that the scraggly-bearded Rolex salesman is now sitting in the booth behind us.

      He’s wearing an ill-fitting electric-blue suit that has definitely seen better decades, and a tie covered in little cartoon reindeer. His box of moody watches is on the table in front of him, next to a half-drunk pint. He’s spinning a beer mat on its side and grinning broadly at me through his rust-coloured tangle of facial hair.

      ‘Sorry … what was that, mate?’ I say.

      He takes a sip of his beer. ‘It just felt like you were right on the brink of opening up to your friend there. And then he walked off. Rotten luck.’

      ‘Right, yeah. I mean, it was sort of a private conversation, but …’

      The watch-seller shrugs. ‘Oh, I wasn’t listening or anything. Just couldn’t help overhearing, that’s all.’

      He smiles at me again, blue eyes twinkling under his unruly coppery-grey hair. There’s something familiar about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s possibly the vaguely Bill Nighy vibe he gives off – all wiry and crumpled and mischievous. His age is impossible to place, though: he could be anywhere from fifty to about seventy-five.

      Still, I’ve been cornered by enough pub bores in my life to know exactly how this conversation will pan out if I keep engaging. After a couple more pleasantries, this bloke will undoubtedly whip his chair round to our table and spend the rest of the night regaling us with long-winded anecdotes, while occasionally attempting to flog us a watch.

      ‘OK. Well, fair enough,’ I say. ‘Have a good night, then.’

      I start to turn back round, but the guy speaks again.

      ‘Christmas is a time for reflection, isn’t it? Getting things off your chest.’

      I sigh. I’m not in the mood for a heart-to-heart with a total stranger – particularly not when I’ve just failed to initiate one with my best mate. But I also feel bad about leaving an obviously lonely old man hanging on Christmas Eve. So I turn back to face him.

      ‘How d’you mean?’

      The watch-seller is now wearing a thoughtful smile and drumming his fingers on the box in front of him. ‘You start to wonder about the bad decisions you’ve made in life, don’t you?’ he says. ‘Or the wrong turnings you might have taken.’ He stops drumming and looks me straight in the eye. ‘You start to wonder how things might have worked out differently for you. And whether – if you could go back and change things – you really would.’

      I nod, now feeling slightly concerned that this bloke is some sort of mind-reader. I’m certain I’ve never seen him before, but for a split second I’m convinced that he knows me. That somehow he has access to my deepest thoughts and fears and secrets …

      But then reality comes crashing back, and I remember that mind-reading watch salesmen don’t exist.

      I try to catch Harv’s eye at the bar so that he hurries back quickly and gives me an excuse to end this conversation. ‘Yeah, anyway, listen, mate,’ I say. ‘I’d better—’

      ‘Is there anything you’d do?’ the old man interrupts. ‘If you could go back. Is there anything you wish you’d done differently?’

      He’s staring at me with a weird intensity now, those blue eyes almost fizzing in their sockets. Out of nowhere, all that confusion and guilt and regret I’ve just managed to push down comes rushing straight back up. I think of the things I said to Mum before she died – the things I’d do anything to unsay. I think of what happened in Paris. I think about that night in the maze at uni – the night I met Daphne. My throat is parched suddenly, and my face feels boiling hot. ‘I guess … maybe there are things I’d do differently,’ I find myself saying.

      The old man blinks and nods, still watching me with that odd, unreadable expression. And then suddenly his face brightens, and he raps the box with his knuckles. ‘So. Can I interest you in a watch, my friend?’

      And there it is.

      ‘No, honestly, I’m fine, thanks.’

      ‘I notice you’re not wearing one. I reckon this little number would suit you perfectly …’ He opens the box and takes out a totally unremarkable wristwatch. No chunky silver frame or famous logo or complex features – just a plain white clock face with a black leather strap.

      ‘Really,’