‘I could have held you.’
I smirk.
‘Look, maybe I couldn’t have done anything, he continues. ‘At least I can turn my break-up into a quick ten-minute set for shits and giggles. But you still need someone to talk to. I can’t believe Kate moved out. Lauren didn’t say a word. Where’s she staying?’
‘Airbnb in Shoreditch,’ I reply. ‘Might as well be Mars. Lauren, eh? You two getting cosy these days?’
‘We’re courting,’ he replies. ‘Taking things slow. I want to make sure she’s the one before I let her near my beard, you know?’
‘Not really.’
He takes his change from the barman and throws it in the tip jar. ‘I am sorry, though. You must be gutted.’
I prop up the bar, continuing to sip my pint, while Graham waits for his Guinness to settle. ‘I’ve been all right,’ I tell him, not wanting to admit that I’ve been miserable as sin. ‘Not muchventing needed, to be honest. It’s just one of those things.’
Somewhere under Graham’s very unkempt brown beard, he frowns. ‘But the fact that you’re down here doing an open-mic night tells me otherwise. I’ve been there, remember? Everyone thought I was having some sort of mid-life crisis at twenty-five.’
‘You were, though,’ I remind him. ‘You literally quit your job and bought a bearded dragon.’
‘You leave Penelope out of this.’
I laugh. ‘This isn’t the same. I’m not looking to change career; I’m just trying something new. Shaking things up a little– it’s no big deal.’
‘Most men join the gym after a break-up,’ Graham remarks, his pint froth nestling on his top lip. ‘Get guns and abs! They don’t throw themselves to the wolves.’
‘You did.’
He shrugs. ‘I already had abs.’
We both laugh. Graham’s a lot of things, but buff isn’t one of them.
I turn and look towards the back of the room, where a solitary mic stands on a small stage. The Tawny hosts one of London’s best open-mic nights, where anything goes: comedy, music, magicians. It’s usually mobbed, and tonight is no different. The room is already filling up with punters, ready to be entertained for free and getting cockier with each drink. I’m nervous as hell. I haven’t performed my own stuff in public since I was at university, and apart from the impromptu song with Ashleigh, I haven’t performed publicly in years. Well, apart from playing piano for the school drama productions but that doesn’t count because no one was there to see me.
‘This is scarier than I anticipated,’ I admit.
‘Aye, it’s never easy,’ Graham replies. ‘But you’re a teacher. A classroom full of hormonal teenagers is far scarier than anything these idiots could throw at you.’
This is true. My first year of teaching, an entire class refused to quiet down for me, until I yelled so loudly my voice cracked. They then spent the rest of the period giggling and impersonating me. I was devastated. Children are brutal.
An attractive woman in leather trousers comes up to Graham and asks for a selfie. He politely obliges while I look on in amusement. This is the guy the kids at school used to call Beardy Brannigan, a man who packed the same lunch every day for three years and who was twenty before he realised that a scarecrow was so named because it scares crows. And now he’s a frickin’ celebrity!
‘Don’t,’ he says, catching me grinning as she walks away. ‘I hate all this shite. It’s embarrassing. Twitter is going to be filled with photos of me drinkin’ the black stuff and smiling away like a proper wee Irish twit.’
‘You should be honoured,’ I tell him. ‘Women like that only approach me to ask me to move out of the way. How did they even get you to do a set here? You’re a big-time TV star now.’
He snorts. ‘One TV show does not a TV star make. Besides,Iaskedthemif I could perform. I started out here. It’s rough but it’s great fun. I come back here every now and again to try new material.’
‘How rough?’ I ask, my palms beginning to sweat a little. ‘I mean, has anyone actually died from doing this– because I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack.’
‘Put it this way: if they hate you within the first three seconds, you’ll know about it. Um, does Kate know you’re doing this? Is she likely to come?’
‘Nah,’ I reply. ‘I mean, she always pushed me to do stuff like this but. . .’
‘You don’t want her to think you’re doing it just cos she told you to?’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘Nothing like that. I just don’t want her turning upand seeing me fail spectacularly.’
‘Understood,’ he says. ‘She already has enough reasons not to be with you, right?’ He grins, unable to keep a straight face.
