Shortly after The Playboy had silently slithered out of my life, I found myself returning to the UK, after just a few months of living it up in the sunny utopia of Oman.
I was there for just a week; the Playboy of the Persian Gulf was a mere memory (ok, he was writing material too) and I was struggling with the inner turmoil of being at home unexpectedly, whilst knowing I would be returning in a week to the chalk face in Muscat.
Then one day a message bounced into my What’sApp app on my phone.
‘Hi,’ it said.
‘Do I know you?’ I questioned.
Then one of those audio messages appeared … turned out that it was the Playboy’s cousin and he had contacted the Playboy about meeting up.
“Is Lisa free?’ he had (allegedly) asked the Playboy, when the latter announced his inability to meet up for a drink, due to other commitments.
‘Call her and find out,’ replied the Playboy, glibly giving my number to his cousin.
I had met him one night when the Playboy had taken me to an American-style bar, complete with pool tables and a weird glass smoking room in the corner. He had introduced him to me as his cousin and we had got along well. Despite having played pool many times in my life, I am still fairly inept at potting any of the balls, let alone ones of the correct colour and the Playboy’s cousin was very attentive to my tuition in this area. At this point, I had wondered if the Playboy had lied about his age, as he became increasingly stroppy at my growing expertise with the pool cue and actually left our company and danced, alone, on the vacuous dance floor, in true toddler-tantrum style. His cousin joined him and proved that he was something of a twinkle-toes, which seemed to ignite the Playboy’s ire further. The gradual realisation that these were two peacocks vying for the peahen’s attention took me to the bar to order some drinks, whilst enjoying a silent chuckle on the way.
The arrival of vastly overpriced beer pleased the competitors and once more we were reunited and enjoyed the refreshing beverages, complete with the usual Omani accompaniment of peanuts.
We left as soon as the beers had been supped and the Playboy was driving his own car that night, which was a first, but I was also struck by the fact that he had had a considerable amount of alcohol. I, too, had drunk and driven in my early days in Oman, before realising that there was zero tolerance for drinking and driving. Upon learning this fact I had taken it upon myself to never drink and drive, lest I found myself languishing in an Omani prison for an indefinite amount of time. (This was also the night I realised that the Playboy shaved his legs, as he was wearing knee length shorts.) I had much to learn: I think the zero tolerance regarding drinking and driving actually encourages the phenomenon, which is what happens when you set the standard as impossibly high.
Back to the story: the Playboy’s cousin seemed a decent sort, so I temporarily overlooked the Playboy’s political incorrectness of giving out ladies’ phone numbers without their permission (this argument had its day in due course) and arranged to meet up on my return.
We met at The Beach Club in the PDO camp; again, a nostalgic experience, reminiscent of bygone days with ex-hubby No 1 and thus began a two month romance with one who would be named Batman.
Batman liked Batman … in fact, he sported a Batman pendant and his job smacked of more than a slight obsession with the very human super-hero. His job was to climb the Telecom towers in PDO to fix them. Coincidence? Nah … I have come to realise that very little just happens. Batman liked to take risks. Life had disappointed him thus far and one indulgence – a liking for Batman – could be played out every day if he wished, by climbing the Telecom towers and being Batman for a bit. (And those who are suffering from terminal disappointment, sadly, take very risky risks.)
Initially, it was a fine romance. The honeymoon period was .. well, present. There was no such thing with his cousin; that debacle was just a week or two of mismanaged meetings and stress. But Batman couldn’t get enough of me … he visited me often, bringing roses, alcohol, even complete dinners at times. He brought his guitar; he serenaded me; we lunched out at the weekend; we had barbecues on the beach … and by the way, a sparkly shoreline of phosphorescence with a blazing supermoon setting fire to the sea, to Dan Seals’ ‘If I Had Only One Friend Left’, scores an easy 10/10 for romantic value.
Then the weekday visits stopped and our relationship became one of weekend drinking and dancing into the small hours. This was satisfactory for a while, until I became dissatisfied with the same formula every weekend: ie, always going out with Best Friend plus girlfriend and not playing out any of our plans – rewatching ‘Game of Thrones’ for one thing – or continuing with all the lovely, little, normal things we used to do, like lunching out or chilling at home with him plus guitar. So the weekend shenanigans ended and our relationship became a weekday only affair. This was not satisfactory either, as the evening would sometimes start at 10pm, giving little time for anything more than a short conversation over a fairly rapidly drunk alcoholic beverage.
So the weekday visits stopped and I wondered if I had a boyfriend.
“I never see you,” I complained.
“I have so many problems,” he replied, “like the house I am building … and I have to see my parents … and my children,” (he was a divorcee with four children).
So I ended it.
“But I have all these problems!” he cried.
“So you don’t have time for me,” I shrugged.
But I gave him one last chance.
“Be ready by 9pm,” he instructed, one Thursday afternoon, “and we will go out dancing.”
I was ready.
But he was not.
I waited till midnight and by then I wasn’t really feeling the love anymore, neither for him nor dancing, as this was the umpteenth time that I had wasted precious hours of my life waiting in my apartment. There was a reason, of course: there was always a reason. This one involved Best Friend’s family … lifts to Seeb … what could be done … etc … etc … If it just happened once, then maybe I could tolerate it. But this happened a lot and I began to realise that I had only just made it onto the very end of the priority list. Batman blamed Best Friend, on whom he was reliant for a lift, but over the period of three hours, I felt certain that an alternative method of transport could have been arranged to deliver him to me. But that would mean letting Best Friend down, was the argument. What about letting me down? I argued. This was the crux of the matter … extended families (parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins) came first. Friends came second. Children came third. Girlfriends were bringing up the rear in a poor last place. During the honeymoon period, children and girlfriends temporarily swapped places, to be fair. I would never expect to usurp children – I would have been content with second place to Batman’s children – but the irony is, that they were the only category that Batman would shortchange in favour of me, even forgetting his eldest child’s birthday on one occasion because he was whiling away the hours in my company.
But anyway, back to the story: he sent Best Friend to my apartment and I tried to send him packing. But Best Friend was persistent and I found myself in the confines of his car, with Batman in the front, en route to the local hop, which was always a small Irish bar/club in the basement of a hotel.
Batman was not talking to me, with which I struggled. I had become angry in an audio message but after three hours of waiting, I think that is fair.
On arrival at the club, or ‘disco’ as they still call it in Oman, Batman broke his silence and bought me a drink by way of apology. We had the obligatory argument, after which we danced and things were good. Then he sloped off outside and I didn’t see him again until I attempted to leave. He brought me back from the taxi which was about to transport me home and seemed baffled as to the cause of my incandescence.
“If this is you trying to make things up to me, it’s poor,” I stated, “because I have hardly seen you all evening.”
“But this is my only chance to see my friends!” he argued.
I don’t need to explain my position on this, as you are all decent people who can see how flawed his argument was.
Best Friend’s girlfriend, a sweet Filipino girl with straight, black, waist-length hair which she kept off her face with an Alice band, insisted that I remained with them. Considering her child-like appearance, she was surprisingly strong and also determined to protect me from the perils of travelling home alone. There is an irony to this, which is coming up … I found myself in Best Friend’s car once again (strangely without Best Friend) and when we stopped, a short drive away, outside Best Friend’s girlfriend’s house, so she could collect her belongings with a view to staying at Best Friend’s house (wherever he was – his absence was strangely unnoticed by all but me), I attempted to talk to Batman.
He ignored me.
I left the car and walked.
I didn’t know where I was.
I had no credit on my phone.
I had no money in my purse.
As soon as I had taken the decision to leave his company, I felt a mixture of relief and panic, as I knew how vulnerable I was.
I walked … and walked … and walked … until I found an open petrol station. I didn’t know what I would do at this petrol station, but as luck would have it, a taxi was at a pump and I requested a ride to a cash point and then to my home.
Batman contacted me hours later, wanting to know if I was ok.
Too little, too late.
Lisa Workman 