Life and Laughing_ My Story - Michael McIntyre [89]
Walking out of my flat, I saw Kitty’s blue Mini parked outside the Steeles pub. I considered not popping in, fearful of finding her in the arms of ‘it’s complicated’ guy, but thought I had little to lose at this point. It had been six months since the Comedy Store gig, and we were now genuinely friends. My pursuit of her had been curtailed. I couldn’t keep it up, especially as she offered me no signs of hope. I had also had a few mini-romances of my own. I had no real feeling for these girls, but I was starting to become more self-assured – getting rid of my cashmere coat certainly helped. So when Kitty suggested she came with me to the gig, it wasn’t a big deal. It was natural.
I wasn’t trying to impress her, we were just two people sharing an evening together. Friends. I wasn’t particularly nervous about performing for her because I wasn’t performing for her; I was performing for me and for the judges.
Stephen K. Amos was the host. He was warm, funny and generous to the other acts. He introduced me as looking like Hugh Grant. It was a relaxed atmosphere. I didn’t have to tell myself I had nothing to lose; I genuinely felt that way. The result was a very comfortable and naturally funny gig. It was effortless. I had lost my air of desperation in both my performance and the way I was behaving with Kitty.
It was almost as if I had given up trying. Trying to be funny onstage and trying to make Kitty like me. I had started to be myself. We were inseparable for the next few days. Something had changed, something natural and wonderful was happening between us. I wasn’t overexcited by this shift in our relationship. I didn’t have to play it cool, I felt cool. She asked me to take her out for dinner as she had something she wanted to say to me. I booked her favourite restaurant, Villa Bianca, an Italian in Hampstead. She picked me up in her Mini as she had done two years before, the last time we had been out for dinner. We held hands as we walked from the car to the restaurant.
‘So what is it?’ I asked, confident that what she was about to say was what I had been waiting for. Waiting for two years and longer, much longer. Nothing was as important to me as her, nothing meant more. I was prepared to just be her friend, just to know her. But it seemed my backing off had allowed to happen what I always felt was inevitable.
‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ she said.
At last.
19
Finally I got my romantic comedy ending. The credits would roll over snapshots of our future together, on our wedding day, sipping cocktails on our honeymoon, cradling our newborn in the delivery room, that kind of thing. Although there was some unfinished business to attend to, the situation with ‘it’s complicated’ guy.
‘I’m going to meet him tonight and tell him,’ Kitty said a few days later, waking up in my undecorated untidy one-bedroom flat.
‘Meet him?’ I said. ‘Call him, text him, why do you have to meet him? Can’t you just not return his calls? He’ll get the message. Or leave him a message – in fact, I think this is a good idea. Why don’t you leave an outgoing message on your answer phone telling all other men in your life that you’re with me now? “Hi, I’m sorry I can’t take your call, I’m in love with Michael. Please leave your congratulations message after the tone, and I won’t call you back.”’
‘Michael, stop worrying. I should meet with him out of respect. We are very close, and I’m not going to see him any more, so I think I should tell him in person,’ she reiterated.
‘He’s not your boyfriend, you’re not a couple, there’s nothing to break off. I don’t get the relationship between