He could see she needed someone who wasn’t threatening. Well, he could be that. He could be whatever she wanted, if it meant he got to come to these weddings as a guest.
Not to mention all the other benefits that went with life as someone like Claire’s boyfriend. Smart address, smarter holidays, no money worries ever again. So, yes, whatever she wanted, he would be.
Midway through their set, the band took a break. He declined their offer of a joint behind the stage, and walked to the bar, where Claire was getting a drink.
Water please, he said, then nodded at Claire. Hi.
Hi, she said. Are you in the band?
Yep. Hope you’re enjoying it.
Up close she was very pretty. Unlike most of the other guests she didn’t need the expensive grooming.
You guys are great! I loved your song. You know – the one – she blushed as she realized she didn’t remember the name of the band’s hit. Alfie smiled.
Don’t worry. I wasn’t in the band then. At the moment I’m helping them out.
Is that what you do? Help out bands?
I’m a musician, yes. If that’s what you’re asking. I do all kinds of stuff.
Wow, Claire said. I wish I could play an instrument.
You could, if you tried.
You’re very kind, but I don’t think so. I’m tone deaf. She laughed. You should hear me singing.
I’d like to. And anyone can learn.
Not me!
The barman handed Alfie his water.
Not drinking? Claire said. I thought you musicians were wild?
I have to drive home. I have work tomorrow.
Another wedding?
Alfie shook his head. Tutoring. It’s hard to make a living from royalties alone.
Royalties? Claire’s eyes lit up. Have you released records?
Quite a few. At least, I’ve been on quite a few.
Anything I’d have heard of?
I doubt it.
Her smiled faded. Are they alternative indie things that only the arty kids listen to?
They’re certainly things kids listen to, but I’m not sure about the alternative indie part.
Come on, then. Tell me one of them.
Well, Alfie said, the most recent one was a ballad. It tells the story of a worm who lives at the bottom of a garden, and whose name is Wiggly-Woo. The one before you might remember from your infant school – I played piano on ‘The Dingle-Dangle Scarecrow’.
Claire burst into laughter. You sing children’s songs?
I do. What’s so funny? Music is an important part of childhood development.
I know, but – it’s just – well, I had an idea of sex and drugs and rock’n’roll and that’s a bit more—
Nappies and wet wipes and singalongs? I know. Not exactly living the life. He shrugged. But I enjoy it. And it pays the bills. And I do think it’s important for kids to have access to quality music from an early age. It might only be ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ but it doesn’t have to be bad.
I agree, she said. And I admire you. It’s very impressive.
He glanced at the stage. The rest of the band was re-emerging. He grabbed a napkin and took a pen from his pocket.
Here, he said, and wrote his number down. Give me a call sometime. I’ll play you some of my back catalogue.
He handed it to her and headed back to the stage. She’ll call, he thought. She’ll call because she feels superior to me. Stronger. Because I’m a kids’ entertainer and anyone who does that is safe. Weak. Not going to leave her. And that’s what she wants.
So that’s what he’d be. He made a mental note to buy some kids’ music CDs the next day. He’d never played on a kids’ CD in his life, but he’d tell her he was on them. She wouldn’t know any different.
Back on stage, he picked up his bass as the band played the opening bars of ‘Wild Thing’. He glanced at her. She was talking to a friend who had her back to the band, but as he watched she looked up at him. He gave a little wave. She waved back at him.
He knew then this was a done deal.
And it was. They went on dates, ate meals Alfie couldn’t afford in places he’d never known existed. He met her friends and their husbands, listened to how they spoke and matched his accent to theirs, modelled his behaviour – confident, charming – on the way they acted. She fell in love with him, head over heels. He fell in love with the life she offered him.
It was a life he could get no other way. He worked, on and off, but he didn’t get very far. It wasn’t his fault; he was as able as anyone else but he had the wrong background. He’d managed to get into a marketing firm at one point but had got sick of seeing graduates with RP voices and degrees in art history from Warwick and Durham and Oxford show up and take all the promotions. He hated them, hated taking orders from a fucking idiot who just happened to have been to the right school and the right university and whose dad had the right connections and whose mum had the right clothes and gave head to the right fucking people.
And there was nothing he could do about it. He had nothing and he was going nowhere.
But Claire fixed both his problems. She had money, and she had connections, and at first he had quite liked her, which was, for Alfie, as good as it got. He didn’t really care about anybody – he certainly didn’t love anyone in the way other people claimed to; in fact, it seemed absurd to him that anyone could ever be so dependent on someone else – so why not Claire? And what wasn’t to like? She was pretty, quiet, and, if he was ever getting too bored with talking to her there was always sex. Like most new couples, they did that a lot.
But it had all changed now. Now he hated her.
He finished his cigarette and put his lighter and cigarettes back in his jacket pocket. As he did, his fingers brushed the phone he kept with the illicit tobacco. It wasn’t his iPhone; that was in the back pocket of his trousers.
It was his other phone, a pay-as-you-go Android device he’d bought in a backstreet electronics shop.
He took it out and glanced at the screen. There were four missed calls and three messages. He swiped and read them.
The first was from that morning.
Hey! I’m missing you! Give me a call. It’s been a week! Pippa x
Then, a few hours later:
Are you ignoring me? Only kidding. But call! Pips.
Then a new arrival only a few minutes old:
Henry! What’s going on? Get in touch. Please?
It was the ‘please?’ that did it. He’d sensed she was getting too attached and this was confirmation. Besides, he was getting bored with Pippa Davies-Hunt anyway. Most of the thrill with her had been in the chase. She knew how to play hard to get, understood that once she let him screw her the mystery would be gone, the novelty would have worn off.
And she was right. All the thrill was in the chase. She was well educated and rich and lean and pretty but she was a disappointment