December 27th.
1997.
I’d done it again.
At least, that's what the Kylie on the TV was telling me. Bossy Kylie. Along with – thanks to the magic of television trickery - three near-identical sisters: flirty, girly and slutty. And despite being in agreement that it was “all in my head” and I needed to “put that business to bed”, they were still having a scrap about it in their – her - latest music video, for the nation’s viewing pleasure. I smiled, and turned the TV up a notch.
I like Kylie. Yes, for all the obvious male reasons – she’s cute, pretty, she occasionally doesn’t wear very much - but there’s more to her than that. Ok, I confess I’m not basing this on much – the odd interview, her cameo appearance in the Vicar of Dibley – but there’s only so much a person can fake. Sooner or later the façade slips, and when it does, if you’re paying attention, you get to glimpse the real person underneath. And from what I’ve seen, the real Kylie is an interesting, funny, caring, feeling, beautiful (on the inside) woman. She’s just this ‘normal girl’ who settles down in front of ‘Frasier’ on a Friday night with a glass of Chardonnay, and probably croons to soppy love songs when she thinks nobody’s listening. Who wouldn’t be attracted to someone like that? And if there’s any justice in the world then someday she’ll walk into my life.
I’m not a bad looking bloke. Probably a seven. Or a six. Out of ten, that is. I’m no Brad Pitt, I grant you that. I'm pretty average looking; a little on the tall side, some might say gangly. My jeans never seem to fit properly – they just hang on my hips. A bottom would probably help, but where most men have a posterior, I just have a place where my legs meet. Just as my arms are really only there so that my hands have a way to reach my thighs. My hair too is a bit of a disaster area. Bits tend to stick up, or flop this way and that, like my scalp is divided into tribes of hair that can’t reach a consensus on how I should look. Then there’s the annoying frizzy bit on my fringe, like half a dozen rogue strands have declared independence from the rest of my head. Apparently I do have nice eyes though, but it's true - Kylie isn’t going to come waltzing into my life just because she happens to glance in my direction. But neither is she going to run a mile either. Given the right set of special circumstances I probably stand as much chance as the next man - so long as the next man isn’t Brad Pitt.
Plus, I'm a nice person. A ‘good guy’. In fact, if it wasn't for the whole ‘dumping her on Christmas Day’ incident, even Liz would agree with that. And we were both born on the twenty eighth of May, 1968 – Kylie and I are exactly the same age, which has to give me some sort of advantage, surely?
Of course some might say my chances of meeting Kylie, let alone getting her into my life, are slim, non-existent even. But that's just negative thinking. In my head I have it all worked out: I’d be at home one Saturday or Sunday afternoon and, quite by chance, I’d be dressed in my best clobber. The flat would be relatively tidy, and I wouldn’t be doing anything that might lead to embarrassment should, say, the doorbell ring and a distressed Kylie be standing there.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she’d say. “I’ve just broken down and this piece of junk,” (holding the latest mobile phone for me to see) “has chosen this precise moment to run out of juice. Could I use your phone?”
And, being the perfect gentleman I am, I’d wave her in with a heady mixture of sympathy, charming rapport about shoddy phone batteries, and absolutely no hint that I recognised her.
Then, while she sits on my sofa recovering from the shock of being told by whatever car recovery company rock stars use these days that they “couldn’t possibly get anyone to her in under three hours”, I’d breeze in from the kitchen with a chamomile tea, or some other quirky beverage, and she’d tell me how the whole celeb thing has just become too much, how soothing the tea is, and please, call her ‘Minnie’ and ... oh, could I just hold her for a while because she really needs a hug right now.
I mentioned this to Liz once. Not all of it. Just bits. It didn't go down well.
From that moment on, Kylie had a starring role in pretty much every argument we ever had. The average spat might start with a vigorous, but none the less sensible, exchange of views over whether or not I should have thought to mention that Alex and I had booked a trip to Dublin, but by the end we’d be going ten bells over whether or not this is the sort of behaviour Kylie would tolerate from her boyfriends - of which she probably has hundreds, several a night if the truth be known - and if I thought for one moment that someone like Kylie would even glance in my direction then I was a bigger idiot than Liz currently had me pegged for!
I shook the voice of my ex-girlfriend out of my head and turned my attention back to the TV, just as the four Kylies finished beating each other up to music and a grumpy Robbie Williams wandered onto my screen and started to drone on and on about an angel he was loving. If he was loving an angel, why did he look so darn miserable?
I picked up the remote, pointed it at Robbie’s head, and pressed the off button.
“I saw that Kylie Minogue on television last night,” said my grandmother through a mouthful of Yorkshire pudding. “Trollop,” she declared.
“That’s Jason’s ideal woman,” piped up my sister, just as I was attempting to swallow a particularly gnarly piece of broccoli. I coughed slightly to dislodge the vegetable caught in my throat, and then forced the food down. Wendy shot me a look, as if the muted sounds of my choking had been some sort of comment. “Isn’t that why Liz gave you the Kylie calendar on Christmas Day?” she asked, flicking her long hair over a bony shoulder. “So you could hang it on the wall and stare at it longingly?”
“I think it was an ‘ironic gift’. You know, like a joke?” I nodded vigorously to emphasise the point, then looked down at my plate for something easy to swallow.
“That’s not what Liz said,” continued Wendy, as she sat bolt upright and stirred a plastic bowl of baby food in a manner that was almost regal. I glanced up at Bethany in her high chair, little legs swinging in eager anticipation of a goo-laden plastic spoon, and I envied her. Hers was the only way to have a safe relationship with my sister. As soon as she was able to string two words together she’d probably be in as much trouble as the rest of us. “Liz said that the mere mention of Kylie has you floating off into your own little dream world and she has to poke you in the ribs to bring you back.”
“Really,” I mumbled.
“She said that if she were tied to a railway track, and you were the only person around to rescue her, and a bus went past with a poster of Kylie on the side ...”
“Gran – could you pass the gravy?” I said.
“She’s a trollop,” hissed my grandmother.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the gravy boat.
“... She said that you’d be more interested in the poster, and she’d be forced to lie there in the hopes that the bus was being laid on by the rail company due to engineering works on the line. We had a good laugh about it.”
“Yeah,” I said, “she’s hilarious.”
“Well, I’m not sure that I like jokes like that,” said my mother, coming into the room and sitting at the table, “but I’m pleased that Liz has a sense of humour and Jason’s very lucky to have her.” She leaned forward, squeezed my arm affectionately, and smoothed out her skirt before picking up her knife and fork. I paused for a moment, still able to feel my mother’s hand on my arm.
“Is Liz taking a train then?” asked my grandmother.
“No,” I said, still distracted by my mother’s touch.
“Is that why she’s late?”
“No!” Wendy reiterated.
“Well I hope she arrives soon,” continued my grandmother. “There’s pudding.” She smiled broadly at me, her crystal blue eyes sparkling at the prospect, and I forced the corners of my mouth skywards. My mother looked at me, at my grandmother, and then back again.
“There’s nothing wrong between you and Liz, is there?” asked my mother, and as she did so time seemed to grind to an unexpected halt, like the wheels had fallen off the ‘carriage of history’, and we sat trapped inside a motionless box on the ‘road to destiny’. In the frozen scene before me, three generations of Smith women stared back, all waiting for my answer and all wanting to know why Liz, their Liz, wasn’t sitting at the table with us, and only then did it occur to me that I might have a problem.
In my head Liz was a lot like an old sweater, something I’d just got into the habit of wearing on an almost daily basis, but it was only clothing. And now that I’d finally put it to one side I wasn’t really expecting anyone to ask after it, or show concern for its welfare. It wasn’t that important and life was supposed to go on.
But Liz wasn’t a sweater. And I’d clearly been an idiot not to see just how much a part of the family she had become. I hadn't just broken up our relationship; I'd broken up three others too.
“Wrong?” I asked.
“Yes,” said my mother.
“No. No. Nothing wrong.”
“You haven’t had an argument or anything?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Argument?” I said, my voice straining slightly.
“It’s just when I asked you earlier where she was you weren’t very forthcoming ...”
“Forthcoming?” I repeated, mentally glancing left and right for some sort of escape.
“No,” said my mother. I loaded my fork.
“Really?” I squeaked, and then stuffed my mouth with beef.
“No,” said my mother again. There was an uncomfortable pause whilst I chewed, and waited for someone to change the subject. No one did.
“She’s dumped you, hasn’t she?” said my sister, doing the hair flick thing again, and turning away to load a spoonful of food and shovel it into Bethany.
“Dumped!?” said my mother, like the word had been used in relation to a body. Her hand reached for the pearls round her neck and she massaged them through her fingers like they were rosary beads.
“I was dumped once,” said my grandmother, sitting back in her chair, her arms folded tightly in front of her, her face screwed up like a giant pink disapproving walnut on top of a pile of old clothes. “Terrible, it was.”
“Oh Jason,” said my mother, bringing her other hand to her mouth, the disappointment radiating from her in waves.
I definitely had a problem.
Less than thirty seconds - and barely a word from me - and all three Smith women thought they knew exactly what was going on in my life, and had appointed themselves my judge, jury, and executioner. I could either face my sentence, or -
“We’re fine,” I said, swallowing hard. “She’s just under the weather. Sick. Not much. Just a little. Nothing serious.”
“Sick?” said my sister, turning back slowly, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“Yes,” I said flatly.
“She looked fine on Christmas Day,” said my mother.
“I know – it just - you know - came on suddenly.” I swallowed again.
“It’s flu,” said my grandmother, nodding. “There’s this terrible flu bug going round. I think I had a touch of it last week. Couldn’t do anything.”
“I’m sure it’s not flu,” I said.
“But she’s not well enough to be here to today,” said my mother.
“She just has to rest up,” I said.
“So she’s in bed then?”
“Yes, yes. Taking it easy. She’ll be fine.”
“Oh Jason, you really shouldn’t have left her on her own if she’s got flu ...”
“It’s not flu!” I said, a little louder than intended, and silence fell across the dinner table. After a moment Bethany picked up her plastic bowl and burbled loudly as she bashed it excitedly against her high chair.
“Let me give you a dinner to take over there later,” said my mother. “If it’s flu she needs to keep her strength up.”
“Good idea,” I said, sinking deeper and deeper into the hole I was digging for myself.
“I’ll get one now so that you don’t forget,” she said, leaving the table. There wasn’t a problem in the world that couldn’t be put right with one of my mother’s home-made, pre-cooked, frozen dinners. I forced another smile at my sister and grandmother, then turned my attention back to my lunch, cutting up my roast beef with such concentration that by the time I was finished I'd need tweezers to pick up the pieces. And all the time I could feel Wendy's eyes burning into the side of my head. She knew. She always knew. She could sniff out the smallest fib at a hundred paces, and this one was such a whopper it was only a matter of time before it wouldn’t so much bite me in the arse as swallow me whole and spit out the gristly bits.
“I had a friend die from flu,” said my grandmother. “Terrible it was.”
I hadn't meant to lie. I just wasn't ready to tell them the truth, and as I pulled out of my mother’s driveway, a defrosting frozen dinner on the passenger seat, images of Liz as an old sweater of mine, sitting on a shelf in a charity shop, filled my mind. I shook my head. It was a ridiculous thought. I’d never sent any clothes to a charity shop; I’d always held onto them until they fell apart. So in that sense my relationship with Liz was exactly like an old sweater because to all intents and purposes she was still in my life; the evidence was all around me. I still felt wretched: she was still this voice in the back of my head, and although the phone didn’t ring quite so often to remind me of her existence, clearly my family were going to take over that important role. If you’d told me that our Christmas Day bust up had been a figment of my imagination I’d probably have believed you. After five long years Liz had woven her way into the fabric of my life, and I hadn’t the faintest clue what a life without her would be like.
“So, who’s this then?” I whispered to Liz.
“Just watch,” she replied through gritted teeth, “and you’ll find out.”
I watched. The girl skipped and jumped and twirled her way from one side of the stage to the other. Occasionally she pirouetted her way past the king and queen towards the crib in the middle and made big dramatic arm movements to indicate ... something. It was all very annoying.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m completely lost.” Liz shot me a look that told me that we’d be leaving during the interval if I didn’t shut up, and when I sent one back that clearly said “That’s fine with me because this whole thing is completely hateful”, she grabbed the programme and, in the dim light, identified the relevant information.
“This,” she said, in a hushed voice of authority, “is Kylie, the Christmas Fairy, come to present her gift to King Florestan and his Queen to celebrate the christening of Princess Aurora.” She snapped the programme closed, placed it back in her lap, and stared forward with such intent that at any moment her eyeballs might pop out and rocket towards the stage.
“Christmas Fairy’?” I said, with as much disdain as I could muster. “There’s no ‘Christmas Fairy’ in Sleeping Beauty!”
“Of course there is,” said Liz, out of the corner of her mouth.
“No there isn’t.”
“Yes there is!” But I could tell that she wasn’t convinced.
“Look, I'll admit I’m not the most well-read man on the planet, but amongst the small collection of books I have read in my twenty nine years is Sleeping Beauty – and I’m sure there was no 'christening', no 'King Florentine'...”
“Florestan.”
“And no 'Christmas Fairy'.”
“I didn’t say Christmas Fairy, I said Lilac Fairy.”
“Lilac Fairy, Christmas Fairy, whatever ...” But something didn’t seem right. I was sure she said Christmas Fairy. It was also snowing - inside the theatre – and that didn’t seem right either.
“Look,” said Liz, turning to me, “just watch the ballet, and shut up.”
“Yes,” said the old woman to my right, “just shut up.”
“You shut up!” I said to the old woman, and then frowned. She looked very familiar, and it was only when she smiled, her eyes sparkling like sapphires in an old leather purse, that I realised it was my grandmother. Liz sighed and shook her head.
“Jason, why are you here?”
“Because you wanted to see this ... thing!” I said, gesturing towards the stage.
“So what!” said Liz, getting to her feet. I froze. This wasn’t a good turn of events. I looked around me to see if anyone else had noticed my girlfriend’s outburst, but all the seats were empty.
“Is this ... is this a dream?” I asked.
“Really, Jason! Does it matter?”
“Does what matter?”
“Does it matter what I wanted?”
“I’m not sure I understand...”
“You dumped me!”
“Well, technically you gave me an ultimatum,” I protested.
“Oh don’t get all defensive about it – you dumped me! Took you bloody five years to do it but it’s done now, so move on! Find someone else and just leave me alone.” And with that she slumped back in her seat and started picking at a box of popcorn that previously wasn’t there. “After all,” she said, throwing popcorn into her mouth “you're single now.”
My eyes snapped open. She was right - I was single!