My friend Gem came round to my new place this morning for the first time, saying he needed to tell someone what had gone on.

I'd only just fired up the cooker to make breakfast. I was using a blue cast iron frying pan for the first time, a moving in present from Gem and Tanya. He gave it me two days before at work, so that I would have something to cook on when I got settled in. It had not even got warm when I heard the knock.

I turned the heat off and went to the front door. Gem was stood on the doorstep a bit sheepish, in his going out clothes, hair all over the shop, and kebab on his black shirt.

"Sorry mate, I know it's a bit early, but can I come in?" he said quietly.

"Course. What's up?" I said, gesturing him in.

"You know," I carried on, as I walked through to the kitchen, past the pile of empty removal boxes. "You could look like shit if you tidied yourself up a bit. Heavy night?"

"Oh, aye. Certainly was. Christ yes," he replied, looking round. "Any way, nice place. I like what you've done with it."

"Very funny, shut the door behind you. Heart and soul?" I didn't bother waiting for an answer to this old question and started to get the bits and bobs for a cup of tea out of a box on the kitchen floor.

"And I see you didn't waste any time christening the place." He had picked up one of the two half full wine glasses on the work surface.

"Oh yeah, you know. Give us those before you break them," I said, taking the glasses and tipping the wine away before putting them in the sink.

"Anyone I know?"

"Doubt it," I answered, turning back to the kettle. "So, tell me, what's got you up and out so early on a Saturday morning, still in your best bib and tucker? Looking like a pile o'shite, I might add."

He sat on one of the battered charity shop chairs and told me that he had been out with some guys he plays football with down at Copley. They'd set off early, and it had gone on a bit longer than he thought. Then they had stayed out a bit longer than that. At two o'clock he'd got home with a dog-eared kebab in one hand, but could not find his keys.

Then it had all gone wrong.

Tanya let him in. She kicked him furiously into the front room, telling him to ‘sleep on the fucking couch, you stupid drunken prick', or something like that.

"Her usual reaction, you know?" He looked at me as if I would know. I said I  didn't really, no, I'd never seen that from her.

"Here, drink this," I said, passing him a mug of tea. "Bacon?"

He nodded, "Please. Brown."

Then the red mist had come down, he said. Something just went inside him. He said suddenly he could not take any more of her face every time he came home, and for some reason it had become really important for him to sleep in his own bed. The boys were away, so why did it matter that he had been drinking?

He had forced his way upstairs to their bedroom, knocking Tanya down at the foot of the stairs, dropping the food on the floor. When he got to the bedroom he had started to get undressed, but struggled with his shirt buttons, just inside the doorway. Tanya tried to open the door to get in but he had half pushed it, half fell on it, and caught her fingers against the doorjam.

"This is where is gets a bit, you know, fuzzy," he continued. "I opened the door to see if she was okay, and she kind of jumped at me, with her nails. I thought she was trying to claw my face, and I just fell over with her on top of me. So I started to slap out and kick out and all sorts of shit, and I think I caught her one because she fell off and got onto the bed. She was calling me all sorts, drunken fucker, ignorant twat, you name it.

"So I got up, and I think, oh shit mate, what have I done? I think I spat at her. Then, I don't know why, I called her a dirty, two-timing bitch," he was looking out of the window as he said this. "She went fucking mental, mate, slapping me and screaming at me to get out, so I did. I went off to sleep downstairs."

The rising sun had woken him up. He left the house in the clothes he was wearing, then walked the three miles from his house to mine.

I had no idea what I could say, and carried on making the breakfasts. It was really quiet and Gem was crying. I could not look at him. The phone rang, and I took the pan off the light.  

"Oh, your phone's connected. Shall I get it?" Gem asked. I shook my head and went through to the front room where it sat on a pile of books next to the front door.

"Dave?" came the voice at the other end. "It's me, Tan. Is Gem there? I don't know where he is, we had a big row and he's gone. Oh shit Dave, I think he might..."

"No, it's alright. I've got windows already, thank you very much," I said, and put the phone down. I looked through to Gem sat in the kitchen, his eyes red.

"Saturday fucking morning, can you believe it? Must have been one of those random phone number things."

"So, what do you think you are going to do?" I asked him as I came back in to finish cooking.

We talked it through as we ate our sandwiches and drank our tea. He came across really remorseful, claiming he had learned a lesson. It wasn't the first time, but it was the worst, he said. He just has no idea what changes in him when he's had a drink. As I listened to what he had to say, nodding in the right places, all I heard was blah, blah, blah. The words were sincere, but he seemed angry at the same time. He told me that was it though, no more. I believed him.

Then I gave him a lift home. On the way I went through all the required platitudes. He'd better change because he's got a beautiful wife and two great kids, they are the ones that are going to get hurt; we all have faults and this was his; it's how you deal with it that is important; there was only one person who could change it. Even as I said the words I was sure that he would know they felt false and wrong to me; that I really wanted to say something entirely different.

Driving through the fields between towns, I looked over and could see he was humiliated by the things I was saying. There was no need to carry on, so I shut up. To kill the silence he asked me who the girl was, and I made something up. He looked envious. We drove the rest of the way in the quiet that only good friends have.

"Any way, Dave," he said as we pulled up outside his house. "You better give us a ring with your new phone number mate, we don't know it yet. Tanya can put it in her book. We might have to phone you to see whether you've burned the place down yet." 

I nodded agreement, and watched as slowly he went up the garden path to face his wife, thinking, sort it out mate, please, because I won't stand to one side for much longer.

*

Later, just as the sun was starting to dip below the trees opposite, Gem came round again. I'd been arranging music into order when knocked on the front window.         

"Hiya, mate" he said, stepping in. He looked a bit neater this time, but his careworn expression made me uneasy.          

"Just came round to let you know how it went. I'm not stopping long, Tan and the kids are in the car outside. We're going to the pictures and then probably to that new Nando's for tea."   

"Nice," I said, gesturing him to sit down. He moved a couple of books off the couch and I sat on the floor leaning against the ancient gas fire bolted to the wall.  

"Sounds like you sorted it out with Tanya. Want to tell me?" I continued.

"Not really, no. We just sorted it really," he answered. "Short story is, obviously she was really pissed off angry with me. Not just from last night but the other times. And then this morning she didn't know where I was. She'd phoned everywhere, her mum's, mine. I think she was more embarrassed about that than anything.

"She said as well that she'd been thinking about seeing someone" he went on. "Kind of floored me that one. I must have known that something was going on though, or I wouldn't have said that last night."

"What did you say to that?"

"Not a lot I could say really. I told her I thought that wasn't right for us and all that. It's all down to me isn't it? I'm the one who gets messed up with drink, not her. I can't blame her really. I told her what I told you, it's the last time I get like that. She said that was okay basically."

"So what happens now?"

"Well, we'll just see how it goes I suppose. I'll be the bastard for a bit, so she'll get her own way on everything. The it'll all turn back to normal, and hopefully I won't be a prick again."

"And what about her seeing someone else."

"Not going to happen, she says," he said, reflectively. "No, not going to happen, because she only thought that because I was being an arsehole. Any way, got to go."

He stood up and went to the door, but turned round to speak as he opened it.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to say thanks for this morning," he said.   

"Hey, you know. See you soon, eh? We'll for a quiet beer," I said warmly. Then, "Hang on a sec, I'll write my new number down for you. I'll just get a pen"

"Nah, don't bother, mate" he said, stepping through the door. "Tanya's got the number already, hasn't she?"  

I could suddenly feel pressure in the room, like a moment of silence after a deafening noise. As I waited for him to speak, Dave just looked at me for one, two seconds, a heartbeat, no more.            

In that moment though, a million or more unspoken words passed between us, words we both knew but neither could say. I think we understood then that some things, like friendship and love, are more important than pride, and even honesty; that sometimes saying something makes it real and silence means you do not have to deal with it.            

Then he said,

"Like I said, mate, thanks for everything." He paused."Fancy joining us?"

"Not this time, I don't think, too much to do. Thanks for asking." I smiled at him.            

Then, nodding once, and holding his hand up, my good friend Gem stepped out to join his family on their night out.