Neal Doran - Dan Taylor Is Giving Up On Women

‘But I didn’t make the link, she did! I…I was just talking as if it was another day, and to do anything different would mean that They Win.’

We sat in silence for a while. Rob weighing up the attraction of pushing on with a guilt trip, but also swayed by the appeal of the crass logic that could make the exploitation of others’ tragedy a tool in the War on Terror. Hannah looked as if she was beginning to realise that my story probably wasn’t going to be workable as an anecdote for my and Gabrielle’s ruby wedding anniversary.

I sat there thinking that Kate could have been my fiancée if she’d said yes when I proposed that September morning in 2010. Instead she cried and said it was all over, and that it had been for several years, really. So on a date most remember as one where the whole world became a scarier place, I remember being left down on one knee with an improvised engagement ring crafted from a one-carat Sugar Puff in a wholegrain Cheerios setting, while the woman I lived for went to pack up a few things. From that moment, the bigger picture hadn’t meant so much.

What can I say? Honestly, I’m over it now and I’d only mentioned it to Gabrielle as I thought it was a way of bringing up the subject of whether or not she herself was single or attached. And to make it clear that I myself was very much available. But when I saw she had genuine tears in her eyes, I realised she’d mixed up the date and the day itself. I’d wanted to explain right then — not least because how old did she think I was if I had a fiancée in 2001? But then the countdown to midnight had started and all I could think was that it could be time for the big kiss, and I hoped she’d been eating the garlicky dips too.

‘And by the way,’ I said to Rob, rising as close to my full height as I could while sitting down, ‘the reason I’m sitting here with you two and not planning a life together with Gabrielle over a casual post-coital brunch is because I wouldn’t let a mix-up like that stand.’

‘And you timed that beautifully,’ said Rob.

Not long after midnight, Gabrielle had asked me to walk her home to Bow. Without much hope of getting a cab we walked briskly through the East London night, and at some point we kissed again, properly. It must have been at one of the few points I wasn’t convinced we were going to be mugged around the next corner. We walked on with anticipation building, giggling and holding each other closer the nearer we got to the house she shared with three friends. Then we were through the door and, with only a couple of pauses for snogs, we were upstairs.

‘I wanted to do this as soon as I saw you looking at me while we were dancing,’ Gabrielle said as we fell together onto her bed, my hands getting lost in her skirt.

‘Me too. You looked so sexy. I couldn’t believe you wanted to dance with me.’

‘Those sad eyes… I knew there was something.’

Fiddling with the back of her bra, I froze. Was I really here because Gabrielle thought I was some kind of War on Terror widower? A gorgeous twenty-one-year-old, with a sensationally springy body and, my God, a real way with her hands, was going to have sex with me, but under the impression that I was someone deep down that I wasn’t. Wasn’t there a name for doing something like that? But this wasn’t my idea, and it was her flat, and my God just look at her…

‘Here, you’d be for ever back around there. This one opens at the front.’

Her bra burst open and she stretched back on the bed, sexy and vulnerable hazel eyes looking at me as she lay there in nothing but a vintage skirt.

I felt physically sick.

‘You look…smashing,’ I said as I buttoned up my shirt all wrong, stabbed my feet back into my shoes and tried to get my flies closed without doing any permanent damage, ‘but you’ve…I’m…I’ve got to go.’

Gabrielle looked confused at first as I headed for the bedroom door, but by the time I glanced back on my way out her hurt and embarrassment had quickly resolved themselves as anger.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘Fuck off!’

I walked for two hours before finally getting an unlicensed cab that smelt of stale beer and sick to take me home, where for hours I tried to sleep with the idiot words ‘you look smashing’ echoing around my head.

‘Couldn’t you have tried to tell her before, y’know, you put your trousers back on?’ asked Hannah. ‘Made a joke of the confusion? I wish you’d called us—maybe it could have been recoverable…’

‘What are we, running some kind of sex advice line now?’ interrupted Rob.

‘Look, I know you want to be honest,’ said Hannah, ignoring Rob, ‘you want to be “Nice Dan” and all that, but sometimes with women it’s about saying the right thing at the right time…’

‘Are you talking about that thing he said about your hair that made you go and buy those straighteners you never use?’ Rob asked, grinning, as I spluttered into my coffee.

‘Or that other thing?’ he continued. ‘How you were really good at wearing clothes that don’t match?’

‘I meant that was cool. Bohemian!’

‘Or, what was it? That you weren’t “one of those too-skinny girls”?’

‘That— You— I— I was only trying to be nice!’

‘I think what she’s trying to say is you don’t have a great track record when it comes to talking to women.’

‘No,’ Hannah said, giving Rob her stern look, ‘what I’m trying to say, Dan, is that you try and be honest and decent, which is brilliant, really. But there’s a time and place, and it’s just a shame your timing was a bit off on this occasion. This could have been your chance to get back out there…’

‘Or rather in there,’ added Rob.

‘So, that’s it, is it?’ I moaned. ‘I’m saying the right things at the wrong time, or the wrong things at an even worse time? It’s no wonder I’m single and fed up with my life.

‘Actually, maybe calling it a “life” is overstating it a bit,’ I continued. ‘It’s more a string of pathetic non-events. I’ve not found a single person who finds me sexually attractive since Kate. And the more I think about her, the more I think it was just this total absence of something in me that finally prompted her to leave. Apart from that brief time when we first got together it’s like who I am — me — doesn’t exist for women.’

‘You could polish up the 9/11 widower act. That nearly worked — you could get a second-hand NY Fire Department badge, maybe add in a limp…’

‘Rob…’ said Hannah, putting a hand on his knee to silence him. I looked around the room, not sure where my outburst had come from, but knowing that I meant it, and certain that if I tried to say one more thing I’d… I’d probably get something in my eye…

‘It’s not been the best start to the year for you, sweetheart, we do see that,’ said Hannah.

‘But you’ve got your worst cock-up out of the way really early too,’ reminded Rob, more kindly. ‘Things can only look up from here.’

I sat there, embarrassed, but grateful for my friends. I wasn’t usually that melodramatic, but hangovers at the best of times made me a bit emotional. I was sure, though, that under the histrionics I was still right, that there was solid reason behind what I’d said.

‘Thanks, guys. It’s always sweet — and slightly creepy — when you’re nice to me,’ I said, ‘but how many years have we sat here and said roughly the same thing? That this year will be different?’

‘That’s how New Year’s resolutions work,’ Rob said.

‘Yeah, but it’s not just New Year, is it? Every time I think I might have found someone new, after I grab the bull by the horns and ask them out, I end up round at your place wondering how I misread the signs, and asking what’s so frigging great about my friendship that no woman dares risk spoiling it. Even you must be starting to get bored by it.’