"Oh, Edward. If only you were loaded," she says, mischievously.
"What?"
"I"m kidding," she says, noting the look of alarm on my face. "Of course it doesn"t make a difference. Well, not to me, anyway."
"Well, in that case, is now a good time to talk about my pay rise?"
7.47 p.m.
"Why ever not?" says Dan when we get to the Jim later, the concept of turning down s.e.x with anybody so alien to him.
"Because a) she was joking, b) she"s my boss, and c) I don"t think I"d get out alive."
"I"d s.h.a.g her," says Dan. "She sounds like a fox. And she"s loaded."
I point to the empty bar stool next to me. "You"d s.h.a.g that if you could find a hole."
Dan shrugs. "Fair cop. And speaking of which..."
I look over my shoulder where a blonde policewoman has just walked into the bar. She heads over towards a group of businessmen sat in the corner, asks for one of them by name, then proceeds to remove her uniform, much to the delight of his colleagues.
As she gets down to her underwear, Wendy walks over and, amid cries of derision from the party, and even louder cries from Dan, asks her to leave. The stripper shrugs, plants a kiss on the bemused birthday boy, and heads for the door, slipping her jacket back on as she does so.
Dan stares longingly at her departing backside. "Won"t be a minute," he says, heading off in pursuit.
True to his word, he isn"t even sixty seconds. "Result!" he says, hitting "save number" on his mobile phone.
I look at him incredulously. "You"re going to go out with a stripper?"
Dan thinks about this for a second or two. ""Go out with", no. "Stay in with" however...And speaking about staying in, it"s time to do something about your flat."
"My flat? What"s wrong with my flat?"
"What, apart from the lack of furniture? You may have taken a vow of chast.i.ty, but you don"t have to live like a monk."
"But what happens when Jane comes back? What is she going to do with all her stuff?"
"That load of old junk?" Dan makes a face. "Take it to the dump."
"This is going to be expensive, isn"t it?" I say, resignedly.
Dan attempts a bad American accent. "You want Jane? Well, Jane costs. And right here"s where you start paying."
Sat.u.r.day 19th February.
11.14 a.m.
Brighton town centre on a Sat.u.r.day morning is not my favourite place, jammed full of groups of scary teenage lads, and even scarier teenage girls. As I make my way through the melee that is Churchill Square Shopping Centre, mothers not much older than the screaming kids they push around in oversized pushchairs block my way. A couple of times they bang painfully into my ankle; when I turn around to remonstrate, their scowl suggests physical violence, and it"s an encounter from which I might just come off worse. I eventually reach the peaceful sanctuary of Sofa So Good, the huge furniture store on the ground floor of the centre, where Dan is locked in conversation with one of the gorgeous female a.s.sistants.
"About time too," he says, when he sees me.
"Sorry. Traffic was bad."
"Never mind. Edward, this is Susie. Susie, this is Edward. He"s the one I told you about. No girlfriend, no style, and more importantly, no furniture."
Susie scrutinizes me for a moment or two. "So this is Mr MFI?"
Dan nods. "That"s right. And he needs your professional help."
She whistles. "It"ll be tough, but I"ll see what I can do."
I look disbelievingly at the two of them. "I am standing within earshot, you know. Besides, what"s wrong with cheap self-a.s.sembled furniture from MFI?"
"Made For Idiots," she says, leading us through to the middle of the store. "Where would you like to begin?"
Dan smiles at her, though to me it looks more like a leer. "I thought we could maybe start on the sofa, and then move into the bedroom?"
As Susie blushes and giggles, I stare incredulously at Dan. "Don"t you ever switch off?"
Susie shows us various pieces of furniture, Dan nodding or shaking his head where appropriate. Whenever I try and make a comment, he shushes me quickly.
"Aren"t I allowed an opinion? It is my flat, and more importantly my money, don"t forget."
Dan takes me to one side, and tells me to sit down. I settle into a calf-skin sofa so luxurious that almost immediately my leather jacket tries to mate with it.
"Think of it this way," he says. "If you were ill, you"d go to the doctor, right?"
"I guess."
"And if he prescribed you some tablets, would you question him, or suggest a different type of medicine?"
"No, I suppose not."
"Well, this is just like that. So shut your face and listen to the experts."
Susie shows us funky tables with unp.r.o.nounceable Scandinavian names, beds that look like sleeping is the last thing you"d want to do in them, and lamps that seem to be more like pieces of sculpture. After an hour or so, we"ve been through the whole store, and a good part of my bank balance. But to his credit, Dan has picked out some particularly nice pieces, and we arrange delivery for the following month.
"You," Dan tells me, "owe me lunch. And you," he adds, turning to Susie, "owe me dinner."
I stand there mutely as Dan and Susie swap numbers, before we head out of the store and down into the Lanes in search of food.
"What do you fancy?" I ask Dan.
"Apart from Susie? Dunno."
I shake my head. "I"ve seen it all now. You don"t even bother to ask them out any more. You just tell them they"re going out with you. "You owe me dinner." Amazing!"
Dan doesn"t hear me, as he"s suddenly distracted by an attractive girl walking past in a sari.
"How about Indian?"
I shake my head. "Is everything you do influenced by women?"
Dan doesn"t even have to think about this. "Pretty much," he says, sheepishly.
We head back along the seafront then cut up Preston Street, Brighton"s Asian-restaurant-heavy road, but can"t decide between the all-you-can-eat buffet at Bombay Mick"s or a more traditional curry at Aloo, Aloo. In the end, we do what we always do, and head off to the Admiral Jim.
"Afternoon, boys," Wendy greets us with a smile, or rather, me with a smile and Dan with a scowl. "You"re later than usual today. What have you been up to?"
"Shopping. For furniture."
"Oh," says Wendy, as Dan orders a plate of penne carbonara, and I settle for the relatively healthier chicken salad. "That sounds...exciting?"
As she takes our food order through to the kitchen, Dan and I go and find a table.
"Thanks for your help earlier," I say, once we"re sat down.
"Don"t mention it," replies Dan. "That was a nicely upholstered bit of stuff back there, I thought."
I nod. "Yes. I particularly liked that sofa."
Dan looks at me as if I"m daft in the head. "No. Susie."
"Ah. Of course. Are you going to go out with her?"
Dan sips his beer. "Probably. I like shop girls. Always keen to please. "The customer is always right", and all that."
I nod in the direction of the bar. "Doesn"t seem to apply where you and Wendy are concerned."
"Yeah. A tougher nut to crack entirely, that one. I think she might even, you know, play for the other team."
"Dan can"t you conceive that there are actually women on this planet who don"t fancy you?"
Dan looks at me strangely. "Are you serious?"
When Wendy comes over to deposit our cutlery, I stop her.
"Wendy. Question for you."
She eyes me suspiciously. "Yes?"
"Well, we were talking about attraction, and Danny-boy here was telling me that most women he met fancied him."
Wendy makes a face. "I don"t."
"That"s what I told him."
Dan coughs. "Yes, but that"s probably because you bat for the other side."
Wendy eyes the knife in her hand. "Oh, I see, you"re saying that because I don"t fancy you, I must be a lesbian."
"That"s about the size of it," replies Dan, nervously.
I brace myself for the violence, or Dan"s wine ending up over his head, but instead, Wendy just calmly lays out Dan"s knife and fork in front of him.
"You know," she says. "I"ve never had a lesbian experience. Never even so much as considered it, to be honest, and I can"t say that I find other women in the slightest bit attractive. But thinking about it now, I can honestly say that yes, if it was a choice between sleeping with Dan and a spot of..."
"Carpet munching?" suggests Dan, helpfully.
"I"d probably choose the second option, in favour of the unpleasantness of Dan"s sweaty, short-lived thrusting."
"See," says Dan, a little less sure of himself now.
"In fact," continues Wendy, a little too loud for his liking. "I can probably imagine what you"re like in bed. No, hang on. I don"t have to imagine, because my flatmate told me. Every little thing, actually. And when I say "little thing", I mean "little thing"."
As she pats him on the head before walking nonchalantly back to the bar, Dan"s face falls even further.
"Uh-oh."
"What?"
"Enemy at three o"clock."
I look at my watch. "What are you talking about? What"s happening at three o"clock?"
"No, dummy. Don"t look, but three o"clock as in over there."
"Where?"
He nods over my shoulder, and I instinctively look round at the corner table, where two girls have just sat down. The one on the left is looking over in our direction, and making what even from a distance I can tell are unfavourable comments about one, or perhaps both, of us. Although if I had to guess, I"d say they"d probably be about Dan.
"Jesus, Edward. "What part of "don"t look" didn"t you understand?"
"Who"s that? Or is it both of them?"
Dan ducks down and tries to hide behind me, despite the fact that he"s obviously already been spotted. "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Edward. I don"t think it"s such a good idea, you trying to lose all this weight. There"s not so much of you to hide behind now."
"What have you done this time? Or rather, who have you done?"
"On the left. The one with the cigarette. Lynne. Met her last month at some party or other."
"And don"t tell me, you slept with her the once, and then just happened to "lose" her number?"
Dan stares at me for a second. "Brilliant. Why didn"t I think of that?" He sits up straight, smiles over towards the two girls, then makes a face of surprised recognition.