When six months ago two of my friends mentioned that after eleven years together and one school age child they were seriously thinking about getting married something deep dark and cynical inside me knew that they would soon be arguing bitterly over who got custody of the tumble drier. Unfortunately it appears that I was right. Gone is the last ditch attempt at togetherness, the plan for the second baby and my nightmare of being a first time bridesmaid at 33. Apparently it’s all OVER bar the shouting, and as many of us know there’s plenty of shouting to be done before they unfairly divide up the record collection.
Wedding bells have given way to death knells and the bile is rising despite deluded and somewhat bogus claims that they would like to stay ‘friends’. Problem is that they haven’t ever been friends; they met (drunk) shagged (often and nosily) moved in together (after six weeks) fell in love (which explains his face and her moods) made house (a cosy mess) got pregnant (a surprise) had a baby (a shock) became parents (terrifying) stopped having sex (disaster) and now they both say that they don’t know who the other is anymore. Well the last bit is not strictly true. The fact is that they know exactly who the other one is and what little resemblance this present self bares to the one they met in 1998 and went skipping off towards the sunset with holding hands. But that doesn’t make it any less than a shame.
Frisbeeing CD’s into his and hers piles on the living room carpet she held aloft a copy of Pulp’s Different Class as though it was some kind of talisman of the ‘best years of my life’ variety and fought back tears when recalling long stoned cuddle sessions on the sofa whilst watching Shooting Stars, something which like much of the relationship apparently was shot to shit according to him when she stopped wearing make up regularly and started wearing elasticated clothing more often. He allegedly made as much effort to clean up his act as he did his teeth before bedtime and suddenly they found themselves mired against a tidal wave of disappointment and dirty underpants. He, like a teenager off to college for the first time is taking with him the cardboard boxed detritus of the last eleven years and moving in with a female colleague called Michelle. I sense the cold front at home melting into a warm front in Michelle’s semi detached within the month.
Spotting a copy of the neither claimed Alanis Morissette album Jagged Little Pill I deftly kicked it under the sofa. Like cutting your own hair or phoning your ex to invite them round for emotionally destructive sex, playing Jagged Little Pill only makes perfect sense when very, very drunk, and with four bottles of Cava left over from Christmas chilling beside the Panda pops in the fridge it seemed like it might become a distinct possibility. I love my friend very much but not enough to wantonly bare witness to the horror fest which is Alanis bitter bitch karaoke™. I have seen hell and it is a drunken bitter woman singing ‘You Oughta Know’ with the conviction of someone who has discovered emotional alchemy in a in a four minute format. I’m not a fan of Ms Morissette and it’s precisely because of this bitter little ditty and all its angst ridden sister’s together men are bastard’s bullshit. In the same way that shirked women are apt to play the martyr card this song also tip’s the wink that yup-its-true most of them are also nutters, still over analysing when love has packed up and moved to Croydon. My friend O can’t hear the first three bars without going the colour of semi-skimmed having heard this song thumping spookily from the car stereo of an ex-girlfriend who parked up outside his abode and played it no less than fourteen times until she was frightened away by a vexed neighbour.
The next step was convincing my friend into turning off the predictive text on her phone and then putting the phone somewhere that would defy drunken logic; like the flour bin. There is no better tool for a dignity bypass then when the mobile magically becomes the mighty sword in lost love. I wash u wasp hare witch me now I stilt lower u are words you’ll regret when the hangover’s kicked in and your retching over the scent of cat food in the morning. But then there’s still the answering machine, something which she’d turned off for a few hours to tune out her mother, but then there it was, Blur No Distance Left to Run, and there I fear is a whole other moment lost in translation. ‘Is it goodbye or is it let’s try again?’ she said and dropped a lit Marlboro down her cleavage.
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