My Single friend by Jane Costello

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

            ‘It was a disaster of epic proportions,’ I declare.

            ‘I’m sure you’re exaggerating,’ says Henry.

            ‘I’m not. By the end of the night, the look on his face was exactly the same as Dermot’s.’

            Henry looks at me blankly.

            ‘The property developer from before Christmas,’ I add.

            ‘Which one was he again?’

            ‘You know – the one who looked like a skinny Robbie Williams.’

            Henry shakes his head, still baffled.

            ‘The one whose arm I dislocated doing my “YMCA” routine,’ I say reluctantly.

            ‘Ah. Well, The Village People always have had a lot to answer for.’

            Despite the quip, I can’t help noticing Henry’s sympathetic look. It is a look with which I am tragically familiar.

            ‘Do you think you’re going to see him again?’ he ventures.

            ‘Not unless he has a bout of amnesia and forgets what a moron he went out with.’

            ‘It can’t just have been the thing with the shoes, surely,’ Henry says. ‘I mean, the thing with the shoes sounds quite bad, but . . . was that really it?’

            ‘The thing with the shoes qualifies as a high point,’ I reply. ‘It went downhill after that. The moment I realized I’d drunk too much to calm my nerves was probably the worst part.’

            ‘Why? What happened?’

            ‘He told me I’d called him Shane all evening instead of Sean.’

            Henry stifles a smile and reaches for the toaster. ‘Would you like another bagel?’

            ‘Why not?’ I say despondently. ‘I might as well be fat as well as miserable.’

            Henry’s in his brown and orange velour dressing-gown, the one his mother bought him for Christmas. I can’t imagine where she found it, because I could shop the length and breadth of Britain and never stumble across anything so hideous.

            I wish I could say it was a one-off, but unfortunately his mother still buys a lot of his clothes, despite him being twenty-eight. I’ve pointed out that this isn’t normal, but to no avail. Besides, the few clothes he picks out himself are as bad, if not worse: polo shirts that should be illegal for under-fifties, jeans that were only de rigueur among balding uncles in the early 1980s.

            Not that this is important. Henry is the best friend anyone could hope for. As a flatmate, he’s excellent company, does more than his fair share of cleaning and always pays his rent on time (taking the pressure off me). More importantly, he’s loyal, above-averagely witty and I’ve cried on his shoulder so often over the years it’s a wonder he hasn’t invested in a raincoat.

            Despite this, there is something about Henry that, no matter how much I love him, is undeniable: he’s a geek. A lovable, kind, couldn’t-live-without-him geek, but a geek all the same.