Ghosts in the Morning - By Will Thurmann Page 0,31
out with her tonight. Then I saw the spot of blood in the toilet. Great, my period had started too, no wonder I was feeling a little miserable. Perhaps I should go out with Anita, try and cheer myself up...or maybe I could just sit on the sofa, cuddle a bottle of wine and watch whatever talent show was on.
In the kitchen I rubbed my eyes as the strong coffee brought me back to life. I drummed my fingers absent-mindedly on the table. I missed cigarettes. I hadn’t smoked for years, but I still felt that familiar craving whenever I had a cup of coffee. Felt it too with wine, if I were honest. Perhaps I should start smoking again, perhaps it would help keep my weight down, but I knew if I started again I would never stop, and I didn’t want to be a smoker, I didn’t want to be beholden to those little sticks again, and I didn’t much like the smell of stale smoke on clothes these days .
‘What the hell, maybe I will go out with Anita tonight,’ I said to myself, out loud. I spoke to myself out loud quite often these days, it seemed. ‘Yes, fuck it, I will go out!’ I shouted at the empty kitchen.
It felt good to roar. I was still angry about the previous night’s dinner party. I was still angry with Graham, too, and I was glad he was out, I didn’t want to see his stupid, doleful face right then. He had gone to the gym, probably, he did that sometimes after a heavy night’s drinking. As if he could undo the damage by jogging on a treadmill for sixty minutes. It never did any good, never made any difference, his pot belly never shrank. In fact he was probably putting himself more at risk of a heart attack. You saw it all the time - fat, middle-aged men popping their clogs at the gym or on the squash court because they still thought they had “it”, still thought they were eighteen, their little brains in denial at the physical realities facing them in the mirror each day.
‘Who were you shouting at?’ Graham was stood there, sweat circles under his arms and under his man boobs.
‘Er, no-one.’ I hadn’t heard him come in. I stared at his face. ‘What’s that on your lip?’
He touched the thin strip of downy hair on his top lip. ‘That, um, it’s a moustache. Well, the beginnings of one, anyway. It’s for Movember, a load of us guys at work are doing it this year. You know, Movember, it’s a charity event, it’s to raise awareness of prostrate cancer – ’
‘I’ve heard of it, Graham, I know what it is, I’m not stupid,’ I snapped. ‘And it’s prostate cancer, not prostrate,’ I added, coldly.
‘Well, I’m just saying, there’s no need to bite my bloody head off – ’
I turned my back and poured some more coffee. Movember – that meant there would be men all over the place growing moustaches, all thinking that it was somehow funny, that looking stupid was some sort of post-modernist ironic joke, whatever that meant.
‘I hate moustaches,’ I muttered but Graham had already headed upstairs for a shower.
***
‘I have to be honest, I wasn’t sure if you were going to come tonight, Andy.’ Anita’s voice was slightly slurred, this being the third bar we’d been to.
‘Why, what do you mean?’
‘I just know how it is with some of my married friends. You know, not easy to get a night out, what with all the married commitments, child commitments and all that.’
‘When have I ever let you down, Anita?’
‘I wasn’t saying that, Andy, don’t be so touchy. Blimey, you really have changed, haven’t you? You seem a lot more spikey than your old self.’
‘I’m sorry, Anita, I didn’t mean to snap at you, I just – ’
‘Hey, Andy, calm down, don’t worry. I’ve told you before, you don’t need to apologise to me. I like this new Andy, I really do, it was about time you stuck up for yourself a bit more, it’s good that you seem to have grown a pair of balls. Metaphorically speaking, of course.’ Anita nodded towards the bar where a tall, blond guy in a well-cut suit was sipping a pint. ‘I tell you what though, I certainly wouldn’t mind getting a hold of his balls.’ She laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle booming across the table.
I pointed at Anita’s glass. ‘Another glass