Androshorts: Passion and Compassion

Being a homeworker makes being told I can't leave the house and must work from home that much easier. I work in advertising and I'm responsible for some publicity that you'll remember.

About four months before I'd split up with my partner of six years, school teacher Nicky who had decided that after all of that time and our gorgeous son Michael we were wholly incompatible and she could no longer bare to be in my company. She stormed out and wouldn't speak to me for a fortnight, talking only through texts and emails, most of which were me asking her to come back and her swearing at me. When we did start to talk again, she looked amazing but maintained her angry distance, and we shared the care of our son who was just four and waiting to start school the next September.

It was a very quiet Friday evening as Nicky had picked Mikey up from me on what would be his last day at his pre-school as they were closing because of the coronavirus and it was his weekend with her. There was a knock at my door that was very hurried and as I stood and walked to it, it knocked again.

"Yeah OK, I'm coming," I shouted, It was gone six pm, I wasn't expecting anything through the post and the strange layout of the local properties meant I hardly ever got asked to take a parcel for anyone else.

"Rick!" shouted a familiar female voice, "hurry up!"

By the time she'd finished panicking I was there and opening the front door to Nicky. There she was looking very flustered but that was nothing new over the last year.

In one of our final arguments where she'd accused me of being insensitive, uncaring, having an eye for other women and myriad other shit that even I, the self-deriding piss-taker, thought was really unfair. In response I'd said that in the Oxford English Dictionary under the term 'anxiety state chronic' it said 'See Nicky'.

Unkind you may think but believe me, tame and timid compared to what she had been throwing at me for the previous weeks.

Nicky is curvy, dark-haired, horrendously intelligent, generally charming, outrageously attractive but if there was an Olympic Sport for Worst Case Scenario (unlikely and inappropriate conclusion drawing) she would be team captain and three times gold medal winner, and gold or silver for 'stating the completely bloody obvious' at Commonwealth Games level. If she'd won the 'OMG!' World Cup it would have been half-empty.

I had previously stopped watching disaster movies, those 'the doctor will see you now' and 'police live from the streets' programmes and spent most of my almost four months without her getting back into all the movies and box sets I'd avoided, and while the global pandemic came as a bit of a real shock, particularly as I have older parents, I must confess from a stress and anxiety point of view, no longer sharing a house with newly anxious Nicky was actually a bit of a blessing.

She'd always been a tiny bit negative but had been improving, even her friends said that living with me had chilled her out considerably, but as Mikey grew into a gorgeous little boy she seemed to get slightly more silly about the trivia and was often quite down.

Because I work from home and our son lives with me I proudly consider myself a househusband, and always have. I value my free time - particularly with him - and often work in the evening's when he is in bed, so I tend to buy my groceries early mornings when I'm on my way home from dropping him off at pre-school, in advance, in bulk and often online so I was quite well provided for in that respect and had shopped locally for a few things just in case there was a lock-down.

My evening working was another of those things she decided she had issues with, even though it was quite minimal and meant I was able to care for Mikey at home while she went back to work full time, and still bring in a quite ridiculous amount of money for my artistic advertising talents.

But here she was on my doorstep with our son and surrounded by at least four large bags. Mikey looked at his Mum with some concern and she grinned back at him and indicated he should go inside. He bounded in as normal.

"Hey Nicky?" I said with a big grin knowing the answer before I'd even asked the question, "Problem?"

"Sophia and her family are just on their way back from The States and have to isolate at home for two weeks so we have nowhere to stay, Rick..." she spluttered, "I was wondering... well hoping really... that you might let me stay here? I'll only need to sleep on the sofa, just for a while Rick," she said with a just trembling hand flipping her hair back, "only for a week or two while Sophia and her family go into self-isolation," I saw her eyes brim with tears, "then I'll be out of your hair." She tried extremely hard to smile.

"OK mate," I said seeing her very real distress, "that's fine, stay as long as you like."

I was still a bit cross with her storming off and dumping me with no discussion only vitriol, but the whole Covid19 thing was getting just a bit serious. I'd made a point of staying cordial with her in the weeks then months since we broke up, but will confess to being a bit of a piss-taker, especially as she had gotten rather short and nasty with me and I found that the happier I seemed, the nastier it made her - and her mother it turned out when I rang her parents house to pass on a work message that had come to my house phone by mistake.

Her Mother thanked me for passing it on and said she would make sure the school got Nicola's NEW home phone number,

"That way I'll never need to hear your IDIOT voice again Mr McKenzie, please -- NEVER call this number again. While my daughter put up with you buffoonery, I do not share her infatuation nor her patience, stay away from her you... you MORON!" she said with a growled sigh so heavily laced with derision, a tone she'd practised for many hears for moments just like this. I could almost see her tight-lipped mouth, judgemental stare and fluttering eyelids she had when she was holding court, breaking into a smile at the thought of her latest, cruel and cutting put-down -- this was why God himself had put her on this earth, her raison d'etre, her calling...

"And it's always such as pleasure to speak to you as well, always a pleasure. Kindness itself, always so kind... MAGGIE..." I knew she would just hate being called Maggie, and if she hadn't slammed down the phone I would have shortened it to Mags given the opportunity. OK, I might have been a bit of a comedian but I'd never been nasty or insulting to her.

Nicky rang me an hour later and shouted at me about that one and how she'd be the one that got the real backlash for my humour. I said that she was presumably happy for her mother to insult me while I thanked her for it, and whatever was going on with us I wasn't sure how I'd earned those particular insults.

On reflection it probably did lead to her moving out to stay with her friend.

She was really cross that time, and a few days later it struck me that her anger might have been about my one disastrous date that had happened a few days before. Although I hadn't told Mikey, he overheard me Facetiming Janice, the woman in question and he'd asked about her.

I'd known Janice through our mutual love of performance comedy at our colleges then at University and we'd had something going on, but on reflection we were just 'fuck buddies' - for part of our second and then most of our third years. When her latest witty video cropped up on Facebook during my 'end of the second month' misery I sent her a message congratulating her on her talent and asking how she was.

Over the week, we'd been chatting about the old days and what great fun it had all been, so I asked if she'd like to have a curry one evening. I'd picked a Wednesday night that Mikey stayed with his Mum and perhaps he'd said something about Daddy arranging to see his old friend for dinner.

It was a horrible time and with the benefit of hindsight I did ask myself if it was revenge, the idea that seeing someone else would ease the break from the woman I'd been in love with.

It was fucking stupid, and on reflection I knew that at the time.

I met Janice at 'The Jester', a 'performance pub' popular with the students from the two local colleges and somewhere that both local bands could play and the next generation of comedians could cut their teeth. I'd gone down reasonably well there along with my guitar, doing stand-up while at college and during University breaks.

This was the first mistake; it was obviously 'her local' but being Wednesday there were no comics or bands and it devoid of both punters and atmosphere but she ordered two pints of the strong brew the pub was famous for. It was heady stuff and I was only halfway down my first with one to go when she ordered her third and seemed in no rush to do anything else.

Once a few of the locals did arrive it turned out that they all reckoned themselves as comics as well, although it was obvious no one else did. Being so incredibly witty they then figured that the nerdy lightweight sat with Jan was OK to take the piss out of and any attempt from me to join in the banter was knocked straight back at me and it was obvious that I wasn't part of the clique or the conversation.

I tried to smile through it, then just ignored them to drink my beer and try and chat quietly to Jan. I couldn't join in their conversation but they could evidently join in ours, but my lack of response to their gargantuan wit was just making them a bit cross and work harder at the jokes that were now just louder and badly veiled insults as they drank more strong beer. All Jan did was smile, and after half an hour or so and her third beer she joined in.

I looked across at the very pretty girl I'd once had very real feelings for and saw what she had become. The very promising, very funny, one-time Edinburgh Fringe and televised (Channel Four) Footlights stand-up comedian had barely changed visibly since our last piss-up and shag before finals but here she was in the scruffy denim, heavy coat and big rigger boots just like her companions, the only difference being she had showered and washed her hair where no one else seemed to have bothered with that inessential in some time.

While she still regularly performed in local comedy clubs her dreams of fame were obviously still to come and what had once been very clever and relevant comedy had descended to bitter meanness once she'd started to get drunk. After forty five minutes of character assassination in which she had played a fair part, I quietly asked if she'd like to go to the nearby Indian for the promised meal that this evening had been about.

Her friends butted in again and complained loudly that the pub needed all the business it could get and just because 'the skinny, four-eyed homo' couldn't stand the pace, why should their home-from-home suffer loss of revenue. One even threw in that the pies where to die for -- literally.

Ha-fucking-ha.

"I ate before I came out," said Jan staring into her glass and not at me and waving a 'conversation over' hand gesture.

"Oh, OK then..."

So it was just going to be a drinking session was it? I was a grown-up and would still have to be reasonably compos mentis the next morning for work. Besides, I'd grown out of the whole 'getting horrendously pissed, laying awake half the night next to the toilet', I had a son I was responsible for who would need collecting from his pre-school just after lunch.

My compatriots, even the girl I'd come out to see, were getting more obnoxious by the minute.

Nah, fuck it; it was time to leave.

I stood, finished my beer and handed the glass across the bar, and picked up my coat to a loud orchestrated "ooooooooooooooh".

"Well gentlemen, thank you so much for your kind, warm, effusive welcome, I'm off -- my stomach thinks my throats been cut and there's a biryani with my name on it out there somewhere."

"A cut throat," said the skinny one with Hank Marvin glasses, long greasy hair and thin pale hairy legs showing from his too-short corduroy trousers, "I'm sure one of us could oblige!" he gave a bit of a forced and false unfunny chuckle.

"Yeah," I said, "I'll be sure to stand still for you mate, is it just you or are you going to phone a friend?"

There was a stream of angry words now back from them. Apparently the rule that they could say what they liked to me but I couldn't be nasty-funny back to them still stood, and the landlady called for order and they seemed to have settled.

"I've never met any of you before yet I'm the bad guy, I don't know what the fuck I've ever done to you but in my book threatening to cut my throat is never a sign that I'm being accepted into the gang, mind you... your loss boys."

The shortest one, the closest I've ever seen a real human look-a-like Gollum, stood,

"You think you can just turn up in Jan's life after seven years and expect 'favours' from her?" he made the exclamation mark sign in the air with 'favours', "She ain't your quick fuck ya' know!?"

I looked at Jan with raised eyebrows at how quickly word had seemed to travel, and she was taking long pulls at her beer now with no eye contact with me, and the hobbit was not impressed, and leapt to her defence again. "Who the fuck are you huh? Just who THE FUCK are you!?" he had some cheers on the back of that one, stabbing his grubby, long-nailed finger in my direction and I returned his glare, which he took exception to, "don't you look at me like that you gay twat, I'll fucking have you!"

"Fair enough!" I took a step closer and leaned down to him, my smile having altogether left my face, "why don't you stand up and 'have me'... oh you are standing up, I do apologise; hang on I'll ask the landlady for a box for you to stand on."

Smeagol stepped back and fell into his chair, stroking his six or seven-a-side hairs back on his sweaty skull, his anger evident but now abated.

The Comedy Club were well versed in comedic insults but the suggestion that it could come to blows shut them all up and it became a staring match. They stared and I smiled and shook my head, raised eyebrows, and arms out to my sides ready for Precious to make his attack.

The next hero stood and stepped closer to me, his arms raised like mine and the smell from the underarms of his camouflage jacket where enough to make me stand back, and as he opened his mouth to speak I shut him down quickly.

"I surrender Rambo!" I said, wafting a hand in front of my face, "fuck me, I'm not prepared for biological warfare, Jeeeeesus!" He quickly dropped his arms, but the smell was little better, "talking of 'biological' GI Joe, couple of Ariel 2-in-1 tabs will sort that jacket mate!" I nodded, smiled and winked to him, "bung it in the washing machine the next time you play dungeons and dragons online. Piece of piss." I looked at him with my head to one side, "Actually, next time you have a shower, the D&D can wait!" I smiled again.

The silence was really uncomfortable now,

"Well, seems you boys can dish it out but you can't take it, shame that," my tone had an air of admonition to it and they all stared at the table or their beer like negligent school boys, I looked at Jan, "you boys also seem to know more about mine and Jan's evening than I do, so on that bombshell it's time I left. Jan, I'd like to say it was nice but it hasn't been, sorry if I upset you in any way." I bowed to the landlady, "l was wondering why the lounge bar looked so empty, now I can see." The landlady raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips if that thought hadn't occurred to her.

I looked back across the room and saw Jan and her mates; while most of them had a good twenty or more years on her, worse than that she had the same 'miserable old man' look that they did, and I could see them all for what they were; bad-tempered, cynical drunks defending their territory and their prematurely aged friend, intent that she was part of THEIR group and she wasn't going to get away.

"What do you mean?!" said the last, the fat, greying, bearded buffoon that insisted he was an unemployed English lecturer.

"Well if other friends get the sort of welcome that I did, I'm not surprised the place is struggling to stay open, goodnight Jan." Giving up on my comedic skills I threw in a final riposte, "Goodnight gentleman, may flights of angels sing thee back to your empty flats and angry lives -- make sure you keep Jan down there with you, if you can't have any fun, why should she?"

"Fuck you!" she snarled at my back.

I stepped out the door. Before I was ten steps from the place there was a hand on my shoulder and I spun, ready for a punch-up.

"What the fuck Eric?!" snarled Jan "get back in there and apologise to my friends!"

"Why?"

"You come into our pub and you... you insulted them!"

"I insulted them? When Jan, exactly when did the skinny, short-sighted homo insult them mate? Oh yeah, after all of their insults and threats for the first hour, sorry about that. Oh, but you probably never noticed, what with you joining in."

"Oh for fuck's sake Eric, man up and grow a pair will you?" She snarled, "you made it quite clear what tonight was all about..."

"Did I? No mate, we talked about the old days and as far as I was concerned it was going to be for a laugh and chat, a couple of pints and a meal with an old university buddy, not her cabal of knights of the beer-stained round table, and I don't remember saying we were going to do anything but that. All of your mates seemed to know somehow though? So, I've just decided to call it a night."

She folded her arms and looked slightly guilty,

"I didn't tell them anything, they are just looking out for me, we were just out for a good time."

"Believe it or not, being sniped at by your pissed protectors for just being an old friend that they didn't know wasn't that good. If I wanted abuse I could've just invited my Ex round."

"Ex?" she sneered grabbing it with both metaphorical hands, "so that's all I was going to be was it, a revenge fuck?"

"No Jan it wasn't that at all, I actually fancied a curry and a laugh with YOU, nothing else..." I took a deep breath, I'd had enough of this 'good time' and leaned forward and kissed her cheek, "See ya." I turned and carried on my walk.

"We're no different you know!" she shouted after me as I walked, "You and me? No different at all!" getting louder as I got further away, "You're no better than us, don't you dare look down on us!"

I stopped and turned, one more try.

"US! Jan, those grumpy old men have thirty years on you! Don't let them..."

"Don't you fucking DARE judge me!"

"Sorry Jan," with hands up in surrender I walked away and reached a corner and turned into it, wherever it went. Two corners down was a brightly lit chip shop still open and I bought a huge bag and walked home feeling worse than before.

Another woman amazingly angry at me for fuck's sake; She was right though, who was I to judge anybody. That had been seven weeks before and the first woman to really lose her temper with me and point out my shortcomings was here on my doorstep and looked like she was about to fall apart; that strong girl, troubled so much more than before.

This was no time for revenge or 'I told you so'.

I could see that she was right on the edge and buzzing with some significant anxiety so I took her bags and brought them in. I took her hand and led her to the sofa sitting her down and kneeling in front of her looking her up and down. OK, I wasn't two metres away from her but if she had it, then Mikey had it and I could never be two metres away from him. Bugger social distancing, I'd take my chance.

"I'm so sorry Rick..." she said with a trembling bottom lip, "I just... I didn't know where else to go."

"Nick," I said with a soft smile, all thoughts of shouting, angry women out of my head, "don't worry, you're safe now."