Don't You Forget About Me Page 48

Everyone laughs, in a gentle, beguiled way. Like they’re squirrels and he’s feeding them nuts. ‘Cynical under-achiever’, you shit. Look at how he slipped the knife under the rib cage there, with a flick of the wrist so small and fast that it goes unnoticed by everyone but its intended target.

‘We went on an early date to see the new Blade Runner. We settle down to watch it and will inevitably discuss how sequels are always inferior, afterwards. Five minutes into the film, we hear a man, somewhere behind us, say “HE’S A ROBOT!” We glance at each other, ignore it. Again, someone is on screen, he trills: “ROOOOOW-BOT!” like it’s a spoiler. Followed by giggling. We glance again. Uh oh. Is this a ringtone irritant, a sodcaster, a chattering millennial who thinks he’s in front of Netflix at home? Or is he someone with mental impairments? The doubt is landing your woke lefty with a conscience here in a tricky spot. So I do what all middle-aged, middle class men do in such situations, I silently panic and hope a proper adult comes along and deals with it.’

Laughter.

‘Unfortunately, the man doesn’t let up. Whatever and whoever comes on screen, there’s a comment. Now his voice sounds mocking, sarcastic. “SEXY GIRL.” “NICE CAR.” All I can think of is a joke about how I don’t think much to the director’s commentary edition.’ He twinkles at the admiring crowd. ‘Never come to a comedian in a crisis. My girlfriend whispers she needs the loo and stands up. At which point the gentleman disturbing us all says “OOH AND HELLO LADY!”

‘I snap. We’ve missed the first half hour almost in its entirety to the psychodrama of Mr Robot and now he’s harassing my girlfriend? Enough. I tell her to sit down, wait, and I leave my seat. I find a member of staff outside, explain the situation. He enters with a torch, and the man is ejected. Like a handwringing liberal, I say to him as he passes me: “Look I’m sorry but you were ruining it for the rest of us.” The man stares at me and pushes past, no reply, and I feel vindicated. No remorse, and how rude. I tut, loudly.’

‘I return to my seat to muted cheers from the disgruntled filmgoers around me. I feel manly at having taken action, and protected my partner.

‘Afterwards, we go for pizza and I say, over my thin crust American Hot: “I can’t believe he ignored me when I apologised. Why should I apologise anyway? Some people.” My girlfriend says: “I think he was profoundly deaf. If you’ve been deaf from birth, you don’t use language in the same way. I had a customer where I worked who gave me Christmas cards with THE GIRL written on the envelope.”

‘I say: “Or he was simple.”

‘She says: “But he’s obviously seen the first Blade Runner and understood it.” “Why?” I say. “He knew who was a robot and who wasn’t straight off, and you wouldn’t immediately know that from what was on screen without that context.”

‘And, people of The Wicker, I was annoyed at her. I said: “What did you want me to do, leave him there to carry on shouting “RAIN!” and “SCARY GUN”?” She said, “No, I’m not getting at you, I’m only thinking about what his perspective on it was.” I said: “You’d be having a go at me now if I’d done nothing!”

‘She looked baffled. “I didn’t expect you to do anything.”

‘I spent the next half hour sulking, thinking: where’s the gratitude? Doesn’t she appreciate me? Why doesn’t she care about what I did for her?

‘It took me losing this woman I loved, who I still love …’ pause for fakey steadying of himself ‘… a while later, going back over my mistakes, for it to click. I put that pressure on myself because I thought it was a test, where I had to be who she wanted. But I had what she wanted, completely wrong. She didn’t want The Guy Who Got The Other Guy Thrown Out. She wanted The Guy Who Took The Time To Understand The Other Guy. He was the deaf guy, but I was the one who didn’t listen.

‘So my worst date is me. I was the worst date. Thank you.’

Robin slots the microphone back on the stand.

As I get up to leave, amid the ‘You Are A Genius’ level hullabaloo, he’s thronged by women.

Game, set, match. This isn’t love, it’s not even adjacent to love. It’s a grotesque imitation of adoration to give Robin an excuse to hound me. He just wants to dominate me and win, and right now, it feels like he has.

34

Robin is ejected, my indignant friends and family are safely gifted drink in the snug, Share Your Shame’s Gareth quibbles over the politics of Robin’s involvement in the show with an aggrieved Devlin. Wherever I go, I cause trouble.

Lucas steers me into the kitchen, and amid the wiped-down stainless steel surfaces and static of dormant machinery says: ‘Georgina, I am so so sorry. This is entirely on us. I forgot to give Dev a visual and he snuck past when I was occupied. There’s no excuse not to have kept a close eye out for him.’

‘It’s OK.’

‘I can’t apologise enough. Two attacks by that guy in your place of work is two too many, and this one should’ve been entirely preventable.’

I’d have to be a much better person than I am not to get a frisson from Lucas grovelling.

‘Robin has more brass neck than C-3P0, hardly your fault. That wasn’t a date I remember having, by the way.’

‘Really? I just assumed it was with you.’

‘Oh it was, but it was nothing like that. He didn’t complain about the man or get him thrown out, he swore loudly and slow-clapped the staff when they finally did something. He’s a straight up liar. Sorry, artist, using his artistic licence.’

Lucas folds his arms and hisses and shakes his head.

‘You must think less of me for ever entertaining him,’ I blurt. I can’t help it.

I am gratified that Lucas looks genuinely startled at this.

‘Er, no. God, no. I’m not without mistakes myself.’

I swallow. Not a road I want to set off down with him. An awkward silence.

‘“Dave” was Robin though, right?’ Lucas says.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Please don’t tell me any of that wasn’t true because given how much I enjoyed it, it’d be like hearing Father Christmas isn’t real all over again.’

I laugh loudly. ‘Swear down, every word.’

Lucas looks at me and I see he was trying to cheer me up, and it worked, and I am so grateful that he even tried.

The morning after Share Your Shame, I think, it’s time for me to stop agreeing Robin McNee is a problem, and do something about it.

Here’s the thing, I decide, having slept on it. Robin isn’t a physical threat, he’s a psychological terrorist. Intimidating him with muscle, despite what Clem said – and how much it appeals on a base level – it doesn’t make sense to me. To catch a thief and all that.

So what is his vulnerability? On panels, he’s very much the away-with-the-fairies surrealist amid the bloke-ish badinage. I’m not surprised he’s the one that Kitty considers the star turn. He’s clearly used to this boyish manner meaning he can easily consort with women ten or fifteen years younger than him too, me being a case in point. A whiff of ‘grotty, manipulative old letch’ following him around would do him no good.

I have an idea.

Robin was disorganised enough to use my phone from time to time when his was out of juice. I wouldn’t have suspected him playing around with other women because his phone was habitually unlocked, or notifications appearing with full text of the message on screen: where technology was concerned, he was an open book. I know now of course it didn’t mean he had nothing to hide, he just didn’t give much of a shit.

He called Al his agent enough times from my mobile that I was fed up of getting mis-sent messages from a string of unknown numbers, and so Al is there in my phone book.

I might’ve felt guilty at dragging Al into this, but for the fact he turned up at my workplace and turned amateur documentary maker.

I’m not stupid though. If I’ve stored Al’s number, he might’ve stored mine. And if CLIENT’S EX WHO YOU MIGHT’VE INFURIATED WHEN DRUNK flashes on his phone, I can very easily see him drop-calling me.

I sit on my laptop, doing my due diligence – Al is on Twitter, and active on Twitter at that, which is useful. I fire off a direct message.

Hi Al – this is Georgina, Robin McNee’s girlfriend

Ugh, it says something I find those words hard to type. I’ve restored myself to full privileges as I’m sure Al will simply assume we’ve made up in the meanwhile, and ‘ex’ would signal I might be hostile.

Sorry to bother I’m just a tiny bit concerned about him ATM and wonder if I could run some things past you? Between us? Gx

The main part of getting one over on someone, I have learned down the years, is not rat-like cunning, but the benefit of surprise. Ask any cold call scammer. If Al sat and thought about this, he might shout Robin first and check what was what. More likely, he will simply want to know what’s up. Hence this is a carefully gauged approach, me being both non-confrontational and intriguing, which will see Al unthinkingly take the bait. All I need is for him to answer his phone.

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