Three Men On Tour: 43

We stood outside 203 and I looked at it in nervous contemplation. Voices were raised inside and several times I lifted my hand to knock and then let it fall back to my side. Finally, Harry reached over my head and knocked for me. Instantly, the voices stopped.

“Why are we here?“ asked George plaintively. “You said Alicia hadn’t checked in. We don’t know anyone else in the hotel, do we? Well, except…“

Then the door opened and Elspeth was stood there with Alicia behind her and I didn’t know where to look.

We stood there for a while, both women with their arms folded, us not knowing what to say. Then Elspeth stood back and opened the door wide.

“You’d better come in then.“

We trooped inside and arranged ourselves awkwardly on the edge of the bed.

“Well here’s a pretty pickle,“ said Elspeth.

Expectation hung awkwardly on the air. No-one knew where to start.

Eventually, Alicia broke the silence.

“Apparently, nothing happened between you.“

I glanced at Elspeth who reddened and looked at the floor. I wondered how exactly that conversation had gone.

“It’s all my fault,“ butted in Harry. “I got the wrong end of the…“

“Shut up, Harry,“ said Alicia, pinning him with a stare. Then she turned back to me.

“Did you want it to?“

I told you she was a bright girl.

I looked at Elspeth again but she was giving me no help, refusing to meet my eye. I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing.

“Well that speaks volumes,“ sighed Alicia. At which point I began to feel hard done by. We’d already established I’d done nothing. If we were going to parade all the things I’d thought of doing before the jury, we wouldn’t be done before Christmas. I said as much. I could tell by Alicia’s expression that it hadn’t been the smartest of moves.

“I proposed to you,“ she almost yelled. “Is this how it’s going to be? The minute you’re out of my sight you start lusting after everything you see with boobs and a short skirt?“

“To be fair,“ put in Harry, “I don’t think he waited till you were out of sight.“

“Shut up, Harry,“ Alicia and I shouted in unison.

The silence descended once more like a curtain. I tried to look at Alicia, to try to catch her gaze and let her know what I was feeling, that I was sorry, that I loved her, but there was too much in our eyes for either of us to say anything.

I broke first.

“You said you made a mistake?“

Instantly, the fire fell from Alicia’s eyes and her gaze shot to the floor.

“Yes,“ she muttered.

“Was it about the wedding?“

Yes.“

“Oh.“

“It’s not that I don’t think we should get married,“ said Alicia hastily.

“Oh,“ I said, confused. “But you did make a mistake?“

“I should never have proposed.“

“I don’t get it,“ said Harry. “You don’t think marriage is a mistake but you think the proposal was. How else were you supposed to have decided on the venue. Telepathy?“

“You never actually said yes,“ continued Alicia, ignoring Harry and looking at me. “I thought we’d had a conversation, and worked out something about our future together, but you never actually said yes.“

“Ah,“ said Elspeth, who seemed to have got there before the rest of us. “How long did it take you to figure it out?“

“It took me a day’s planning before I realised I was filling in Ian’s side of everything, that maybe I should wait till he got back. And from there it was a short step to realising that I’d been doing it all along. That I’d filled in his side even when I shouldn’t have.“

“See, this is why women should never propose,“ sighed Elspeth archly. “If a man proposes to a woman, you can guarantee she’s already thought the question through, she already has an answer, probably pushed the bloke into proposing in the first place, even if he doesn’t know it.”

“I did not push anyone into anything,” snapped Alicia. “And even if I did, Ian’s a big enough boy to make up his own mind.”

“Well, he did a grand job of that didn’t he,” said Elspeth looking round the room. “We’ve all come out well in that little exchange.”

“You certainly seemed happy with the way things were going.”

“I met a man I liked.” Elspeth had been sitting but now she stood, anger flashing in the azure of her eyes. “So sue me. I didn’t realise you had your hooks into him. I might have left him alone if I’d realised he’d already been house broken.”

“What, you prefer men who scratch up the furniture and fight over you in alleyways at night? You seem like the type.”

“I prefer men who’ve got the gumption to realise the woman they’re living with doesn’t give a stuff about them having their own personality, as long as they walk them down the aisle at the appropriate time. I bet you’ve got it all haven’t you: the career, the smart business suit, and now the husband with the two and a half kids to follow. Have you already planned out the Christmas cards, with you all wearing matching outfits? Are you going to buy a dog and call it Rover?”

Alicia laughed mockingly. “Oh, and I suppose you’re the magical pixie girl that shows him what life’s really all about. What, were you going to be gypsies on the road? The two of you going where life blows you and not a thought to tomorrow? He gets enough of that with Harry.”

Elspeth and Alicia were standing close together now; in each others faces. Elspeth leaned forward, her blonde hair pale against the flush of her face.

“What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with wanting a bit of excitement? You just can’t accept the fact that he’s not in love with you. That the moment you let him out of your sight, he’s chasing the most attractive girl in the room. Which just happens to be me, thankyou very much.”

“It’s not Ian’s fault if someone took advantage of him while his head was a mess.”

“What makes you think his head was a mess? The fact that he was vaguely interested in me?” Elspeth turned; began pacing away.

“The fact that he’s a bloke. They’re easily confused.”

Elspeth paused. “Alright, that’s true,” she admitted. “But his head wouldn’t have been in a mess if you hadn’t been messing with it. What’s the sex like? I bet you haven’t done it in years. I bet you lie beside each other at night dreaming of the day when you can have separate beds and put an end to the whole charade.”

She stopped, her anger suddenly burning off, her energy spent. For a moment, she looked infinitely sad. “You know what. I thought he was different. I thought he was interesting. But at the end of the day, I bet he’s just as dried up as you. I bet he has a job he hates, and a home he hates, and you, the girlfriend he tells himself he loves just so he has something to go home to.”

The hiss of Alicia’s indrawn breath was as sharp as snakes.

“I see,” she said. “That’s what you think is it?”

Slowly, deliberately, Alicia pierced Elspeth with a venomous stare.

“Thing is, I know you, I know your type. You see someone and you think you know everything about them. I bet you think you’re a free spirit. I bet you think you’re showing the rest of us how to live our lives. Problem is, you’re just as messed up as the rest of us. More so I suspect, because at least we’re trying. Trying to work out what we want from our lives. Trying to work out who we’d like to share it with.

And the truth is, I worked it out. I worked it out a long time ago. He may be spending some time trying to catch up, but he does catch up in the end. He’s a man who does a job which he loves, not because it’s amazing every day but because he’s good at it, so good at it that he ends up doing everybody else’s work into the bargain. And does he complain about it? No. Mainly because he just wants everyone to get on. He’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met. If people take advantage of him, it’s not because he’s weak. It’s because he’s strong enough to prefer contentment over ego. Or that he’s a chump. But if he’s a chump then he’s my chump. I mean, he didn’t even cheat on me this weekend, when it sounds like he had every opportunity. I just want everything to go back to the way things were. That’s why I made a mistake. I tried to change something that was working.“

She hesitated, sighed, and looked at me.

“Can we go back? It was working, I know it was. Can we just go back to the way we were? Can we forget I ever proposed?”