Don’t You Forget About Me. Mhairi McFarlane

LOL. Tony, your surname isn’t Soprano. You might know more about Italian food if it was

      I’m not really that flippant about his threat. Sheffield’s mid-priced bistros are quite a small world and I can’t pay next month’s rent now. I’m not used to making enemies, I’m usually a champion smoother-over. Appeasement is my middle name.

      Although maybe I’m kidding myself: a third text arrives from my sister, Esther, who I’ve never really succeeded in smoothing over:

       Are you bringing Robin on Sunday? Sending Mark to Sainsbury’s in morning so would be good to get numbers, swift response appreciated. Rib of beef. Let me know if any allergies to Yorkshire pudding or whatever too.

      That’s how Esther always communicates with me on text, like I am a lazy temp at her accountancy firm. Although the near-sarcastic last line is a particular tilt at Robin.

       No he’s out of town! Thanks though x

      I’m also a world-class white liar. Robin and my relatives are a bad combination. I tried two family events with my boyfriend and decided to rest the integration project indefinitely.

      I turn the corner and psychologically, being out of sight of That’s Amore! helps slightly. This is fine, this is nothing. It’ll be a tapas bar in two years’ time, the sort where they microwave gambas pil pil so the frozen prawns are the same texture as contraceptive sponges.

      Plus, Robin’s going to love the material from my firing this evening.

      I can hear myself drafting and redrafting the key passages already, anticipating the points where I expect to get a laugh. At school, everyone used to clamour for my stories, I was good at them. If I went on a terrible summer holiday, I spun it into gold in term time. George, tell the one about …

      Jo once said, admiringly: ‘Mad things always happen to you, how are you a magnet for mad!’ (that could sound like she was doubting me, but Jo is never ever snide. She only ever says exactly what she means) and I explained: I notice things. Appreciating the absurd was a useful skill in my childhood.

      A snap snap snap with my pleasingly heavy silver lighter, in trembling hands, and the tip of my Marlboro Light glows. I suck in a big whoosh of nicotine and I feel better already. It’s not tenable to give up in current circumstances.

      It’s an early winter evening, the sort of cold where the air in the middle distance looks smoky, and you can sense a weekend evening getting going. The swell of people in Broomhill, the scent of aftershave mingling with perfume and burble of chatter that comes with being two drinks to the good.

      I can see my reflection in the window of Betfred and shift from foot to foot. As much as I argue back with Mum when she says things to me like: ‘scruffy is charming in youth but doesn’t age well, Georgina,’ I am starting to wonder if my playful taste in short dresses and liquid eyeliner is going a bit Last Exit to Brooklyn.

      ‘Be careful with that heavy make-up as a blonde. One minute you’re punk like Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner, the next you’re Julie Goodyear.’

      Boy, how I’ll miss Tony’s beauty tips.

      I open a message to Robin, then think again and press backspace to swallow the you’ll-never-guess-what-these-twats-have-done-now rant about the termination of my employment. I have a Friday evening free all of a sudden – this shouldn’t be thrown away on a prosaic text.

      I want to be stylish about it.

      On one of our first dates – I say dates, actually it was being invited round to Robin’s flat to drink red wine, until he eventually flapped a takeaway leaflet at me around 9 p.m. and said: ‘Have you eaten?’ – Robin said: live your life like this song.

      The song playing was Elvis’ ‘Suspicious Minds’ so I asked: what, suspiciously?

      He has a stack Hi Fi with a turntable at the top, which is now old enough to be a fashion statement, with volume lights that ripple.

      ‘The way it fades back in at the end. It’s already brilliant, but that is genius because it’s unexpected. That’s the moment that turns good into true greatness.’

      Robin hunched over, rolling his joint.

      ‘… Everyone thinks you have to do everything a certain way. Monogamy, marriage, mortgage. Two point four kids, because what will you do with the second half of your life otherwise. Washing the car and the roast chicken in the oven every Sunday. William Blake called them “mind forg’d manacles”. People don’t want to get rid of the rule book, it scares them. We’re all living in captivity.’

      I thought I could really fancy some roast chicken. I knew this was an implicit warning to me, as much as Robin sharing his world view.

      (‘If he was going to settle down, he’d have done it by now, Georgina.’ Ta, Mum.) I was determined to appear unfazed.

      ‘Constructed reality. Like The Matrix,’ I say, picking up a menu for Shanghai Garden.

      ‘Yeah! So much of “can’t” and “not allowed” is an illusion.’

      ‘Tell that to my probation officer,’ I said.

      Robin laughed, pushing the window open on its latch, before he lit his spliff. ‘Good one.’

      I felt the satisfaction of being a Cool Girl.

      ‘… Would you share the illusion of a Kung Po rice with me?’

       4

      I toy with the prospect of a taxi to Kelham Island, then consider that now I’m on the dole again, the bus is more appropriate. These sort of internal negotiations are alien to Robin.

      It’s weird to say, but Robin is sort-of famous. ‘Famous’ is overselling it really, but ‘well known’ is positively misleading. He’s a face and a name you might know if you’re in a very specific age demographic in Britain, watch the obscurer TV channels, follow fringe comedy and are probably a stoner.

      When I saw his modern penthouse flat with its lipstick-red leather sofas, white rugs and mezzanine bedroom in a converted factory, I thought wow, challenging offbeat authored comedy pays well.

      In the six months we’ve been seeing each other, I’ve witnessed Robin turn down various offers he thought ‘weren’t simpatico with what I’m trying to build’ and toss bills into the bin unopened, yet the lights stayed on and the hot water flowed. Eventually I twigged that income was coming from elsewhere.

      Apparently Robin’s dad was some major wheel in the civil service, his parents now retired to the Cornish coast. Robin owned his property outright and ‘I get the rental income from the last place.’ I didn’t inquire any more in case I looked like I was gold digging, eyeing up the portfolio.

      ‘Are they fans of what you do?’ I asked, tentatively, as code for woah they set you up nicely.

      Robin ran a hand through his wild hair. ‘I think “fans” might be overstating it. They want me to fulfil my potential, in whatever I see as my potential.’

      Our disparity is never an issue except on the occasions I arrive exhausted from a shift. He’ll shrug and say: ah, sod it off then, as someone who has never understood how it feels to be dangling off the monkey bars with no financial crash mat. His whole inspirational ‘life is what you make it’ schtick grates a bit, as a result.

      Though it has to be said, he’s never complained about our differences as a couple, monetarily or otherwise: as the most sinewy, wiry man I’ve ever slept with, he’s very keen on my waterbed belly and marshmallowy arse, and he positively enthuses about staying in my attic