I wish I’d never met him.
I don’t mean that. I hate myself for being so disloyal. I know that I would do it all again. I’d still get on that train. It was already too late the moment I collided into his eyes in the interview room. I’d thought I was so damn smart. So élite. So untouchable. Yet whilst it hurts that only his ghost – and not his irresistible self – is in my sitting-room, him in my towelling dressing gown, me in his jumper, both of us soaked in love and cum – I know I am still in control.
Oh, only just, I admit that.
I left him. He didn’t leave me. He doesn’t know how I feel. He doesn’t know how vulnerable I am.
Only I know that.
The phone rings, breaking the sound of being alone. I pounce on it. It’s Josh. I know this before I pick it up.
‘How’d it go?’ I’m ridiculously interested, as I’m desperate to break myself out of my own indulgent apathy.
‘Awful,’ he groans.
‘Mmm.’ I sound sympathetic because I am. ‘Did she take it very badly?’
‘She cried.’ Most of Josh is upset but a tiny bit of him is triumphant.
‘Mmm.’
‘It’s worse doing the dumping than being the dumpee.’ I doubt he means this.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ I remind him.
‘No, of course not. You’ve never been dumped.’
‘What is the point of sticking around long enough to get your heart broken?’ I challenge, more cheerfully than honestly. I want this conversation to have away from me. Strangely I haven’t been honest with Josh about my feelings for Darren. Josh assumes Darren was another brief and unimportant encounter. I can’t tell him how I feel because saying it aloud makes it more real. I must bury my feelings for Darren. I must.
‘What did you tell her?’
‘Oh, you know, the usual stuff.’
‘It’s just not right?’
‘Yes,’ he agrees enthusiastically. Although I love Josh, I’m irritated by him. I sigh, thinking of all the women who’ve ever cried because of the words, ‘It’s just not right.’ Why do men only discover this when they roll off the sticky Durex?
‘I know what you’re thinking, but I really didn’t want to hurt her.’
I relent. After all, I’ve known him since he played with Action Men and I played with Sindy dolls. Now it’s the other way round, I can’t simply abandon him. He starts to tell me about the ditching. It doesn’t take long; he’s a boy. If Issie were telling me about her dumping some bloke or other, we’d spend hours. We’d start with describing what both parties were wearing. We’d talk about the location selected for the scenario. It’s very important to choose the correct ground. His place is good because then you get to choose when to leave and he doesn’t have to stumble home in a veil of tears. Or somewhere neutral, like a bar or a party. Not his mum’s. She simply won’t see it from your point of view. And not – under any circumstances – your own place. He might decide not to leave, insisting that it’s possible to make a go of it. It never is. Calling the police in is ugly. I know – I’ve done it. Now if this were Issie it would be a different story. Issie would tell me everything. She’d punctuate it with ‘and then he said’, ‘and then I said’, ‘and he looked as though…’ However close we are, Josh has too many Y-chromosomes to do this. Instead he has to act all disinterested and hard. He blows it when he asks me if I’ll go round.
‘I’ll be there in ten.’ Of course I’ll go to him. I’d walk hot coals for him.
Josh likes to think he lives in Islington but in fact he lives in King’s Cross. He lives in a ground-floor flat, which can most adequately and efficiently be described as ‘masculine’. Until his thirtieth birthday, Josh steadfastly refused to pay as much as a cursory glance towards interior design, cleanliness or comfort. He lived in squalor – not that he seemed to notice. In fact, he often joked that filth and disorder were his best friends. I was never sure if he was referring to his domestic arrangements or me and Issie respectively. Josh only ever washed up if the corner shop had run out of paper plates and he changed his sheets less frequently than his women. His bathroom never benefited from Ajax, Jif or Domestos, all of which could be Greek islands as far as Josh was concerned. His items of furniture were my mother’s cast-offs, the things she absolutely could not force into her home. This foulness was not poverty-induced, simply a male blind spot, as inexplicable as the fact that when men do become interested in their home (thirtieth birthday or marriage, whichever they meet first) they cover the squalidness in blue.
Blue walls and tiles, blue fabric, blue crockery, blue cutlery, blue loo roll, blue napkins and napkin rings (which have only ever been used once – the thirtieth birthday dinner party), blue settee, blue bed and bedding, blue dustpan and mop and finally a blue toothbrush. When Issie or I ever visited Josh whilst he was decorating we were always overly animated, fearing if we stood still for too long he’d paint us blue too.
As I walk into his flat, I’m thinking that if Josh introduced buttercup yellow in his hall or a deep red in his sitting-room it would be a vast improvement.
‘Josh, why are the lights dimmed?’ I ask and immediately turn them up. I start to laugh. ‘Oh, I see, to show off the candles. Are you indulging in a Druid-type self-loathing session?’ I kiss him on the forehead and wave the bottle I’ve brought.
‘It’s a ‘94 Château La Croix de Mouchet. I was saving it for a special occasion but I’m not sure when that’ll be so I thought I’d bring it round.’ I march directly to the kitchen to forage out some glasses.
I bump into the biggest floral arrangement ever.
‘Who are the flowers for, or should I say from? God, Josh, this place looks more like a seduction scene than a dumping ground.’ I suddenly guess what’s going on. ‘No, she didn’t buy you these just before you ditched her, did she?’ I’m shocked at the stupidity of some women. ‘And you accepted them.’ I’m less surprised by the callous nature of most men. ‘Bastard.’ I smile. He’ll know I’m joking. Josh doesn’t answer but takes the wine I’m offering and clinks my glass. I continue chattering, glad of the company, for what it is. Josh is not at his sparkly best.
‘God, I’ve had the loneliest weekend,’ I confess.
‘Really?’
‘Don’t look so pleased about it, Josh. You know you and Issie are indispensable to me. You don’t need to prove your point by both going away at once. I started having the most maudlin thoughts. I even wished there was a wedding to go to. Now isn’t that a hoot?’
Josh brightens. ‘Do you really?’
‘What?’
‘Wish there was a wedding to go to?’
‘Well, since my choice this weekend was that or eat Coco Pops, by the hand directly from the box, yes, I’d prefer the wedding.’ I pat the settee next to me. ‘Come on, then, sit here. Tell me all about chucking Jane.’ I stare at Josh. ‘Hey, you look quite shaken. Are you regretting it?’
‘No.’ He shakes his head definitively.
‘So?’ He pauses for the longest time. Something is definitely upsetting him. ‘Good God, Josh. You’re not ill, are you?’ I’m suddenly terrified.
‘No. Not ill.’
‘So what’s up?’ I link my arm through his. He shuffles awkwardly, pulling his arm away.
‘I don’t know how to put this.’
‘Just say it, whatever it is,’ I encourage. Why the sudden hesitancy? Josh and I have always spoken freely to one another. What can he have to say that’s so dreadful? Suddenly he lurches for my hand.