10 Things That Never Happened (Material World #1)

by Alexis Hall

Besides, did you really think I go to sleep in a suit, so my pillows know who’s in charge?” “Honestly? Yeah. A bit.” “Oh shush,” he says, without rancour.

“…I don’t know how I’m supposed to go the rest of my life without being kissed by you again.”

“Who in their right mind makes a sausage out of blood if they’ve got the option to make it out of literally anything else.”

“Are you really,” he asks, “going to make small talk about cows for”—he checks the clock on the dashboard—“the next four hours?” “I’ll admit,” I admit, “I am running low on cow banter.” “Don’t worry. You might see a sheep next.” “You are not prepared,” I tell him, “for my amusing sheep anecdotes.”

“Don’t you be having a go at the Mersey. You don’t see me having a go at the Thames.” “Feel free. It’s basically a giant open sewer.” “Aye, but it’s your open sewer. You should feel proud of that sewer.”

Bruno gives way to Katy Perry, who’s telling us all about how she’s got the eye of the tiger and that. And Jonathan Forest, in what I can only describe as a titanic breach of character, starts singing along. Not only that but he’s quite good.

“Ah,” Claire brightens up, “we’re back on operation kill him with a toilet seat.”

“Every poo has a silver lining,” says Tiff, ever in touch with her inner philosopher. Amjad shakes his head. “If your poo has a silver lining, see a doctor.”

“You took a professional footballer skydiving?” “I thought he’d like to do a physical activity.” “Jonathan, the physical activity you do on dates is called sex.”

“And your first thought was I bet what this man really wants is to be strapped to a bloke who isn’t me and dropped through the sky tied to a bedsheet?”

“What were you expecting it to taste of? Liquid gold and angels’ tears?” “The way you were going on, aye.”

“Jonathan”—I take quite a firm tone with him—“can you please stop this? You’re not a monster in a fairy tale. You’re a person. You can be funny, people will actually laugh at stuff you say, and not just in a mean way.”

I bet this wouldn’t happen to Sandra Bullock.

Unless you’re going to tell me you’re secretly an alien from the planet wanker, and you need to go report back to your people and even then, tell 'em to fuck off. It’s not a good planet in the first place.”

“Why is my home world called the planet wanker?” “I don’t know. It may come as a shock, but most times I ask a feller out he doesn’t ask me to invent science fiction universes off the top of my head.”

“Get your keks off. I’ll start lubing up the kumquats.” “Where would you even get kumquats at this time of night?” “I always carry a couple, just in case. You never know when you might get lucky.”

“Okay, but what would you practicing look like?” “I think it would look…” He sounds adorably confused. “Like me having sex with someone?” “And then you’d slap him on the leg and say, thanks mate, that was a good practice.”

“You can be very sweet.” He clears his throat. “Now go get the kumquats.” “You do know I haven’t actually got any.” “I was banking on that when I suggested you go get them.” “You’ll just have to make do with me.” “I was banking on that too.”

“You’re asleep, aren’t you? So you might be sleeping really well but not know it. Or you might be tossing and turning and saying ooh eck keep the badgers away from me and you’d not realise.”

“Ooh eck,” Jonathan repeats, totally deadpan. “The badgers.”

Also badgers are scary.” He looks unconvinced. “In what way?” “They’re up to something.”

The expression on Nana Pauline’s face is a kind of gleeful outrage. And fair enough because Jonathan walked into that one like Wile E. Coyote into his own anvil trap.

“You say that, but you bunged me in here and left me languishing. Languishing. Do you know what it’s like, Jonathan, languishing? You wake up in the morning and think to yourself what’ll I do today, and then you think I know, I’ll have a languish.”

A big round of applause for Sam, who boldly got laid on our behalf.”

Mrs Forest please stop cleaning the sideboards. If you keep doing my job, your son will fire me.”

“Okay, okay, are you a doctor or a relationship counsellor? I’m trying to make the best of a bad situation.”

“So what, you want me to write something saying, I don’t know, under my watchful eye, Tiffany has discovered her true passion for events planning and management and I believe she will be an asset to the field.” “Forget it, I’ll ask Claire.” “Truly, never has an event been so planned as this event was planned, 'twas a revelation.”

“Before we found out you were gay, we had a bet on how many wives you had buried under your floorboards.” My hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Excuse me, gay people can be serial killers too.”

So here I am, running around that beautifully decorated, surprisingly Christmassy, increasingly claustrophobic and disorienting basement in Shoreditch like I’m in some kind of festive nightmare with all my work colleagues doing guest spots.

It starts raining as I walk away and I’m halfway to the bus stop before I remember I brought a van and I’m halfway to the van before I realise I’ve been crying and my face isn’t just wet from the weather.

The thing about being in the rain is you’re sort of at one with the elements, so even if it’s a bit nippy out it’s bearable. But the moment you’re not being pelted with sky-water and you get somewhere that’s less warm and cosy than it could be, you start to really feel all the ways you’re shivering, and how your clothes are clinging places they shouldn’t cling and climbing up cracks they shouldn’t climb.

And even though I don’t believe in ghosts any more than I believe in God, I jump out my fucking skin because while it’s a very nice graveyard and it’s the early morning and everything’s very un-scary, I am still surrounded by dead people.

“After all, you clearly have terrible taste.” “Oi. I do not.” “I’ve met your cat.” “You love my cat.” Jonathan clears his throat. “I suppose I do.