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So that, give or take a few hundred heart-to-hearts and tantrums, a couple of dozen other split-ups, and the odd punch thrown—by her, I hasten to add—is how Pe
My immediate problem was how to explain my co
So I decided simply to carry on as if there was nothing to explain.
“Sorry. Pe
Pe
“But you still haven’t told me who they are.”
“As in… ?”
“As in, how do you know them and where did you meet them?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Good.”
“Maureen I know from… Where did we meet, Maureen? First of all?”
Maureen stared at me.
“It’s a long time ago now, isn’t it? We’ll remember in a minute. And JJ used to be part of the old Cha
Jess put her arm around JJ, with a touch more satire than I might have wished.
“And where were they all tonight?”
“They’re not deaf, you know. Or idiots. They’re not… deaf idiots.”
“Where were you all tonight?”
“At… like… a party,” said JJ tentatively.
“Where?”
“In Shoreditch.”
“Whose?”
“Whose was it, Jess?”
Jess shrugged carelessly, as if it had been that sort of crazy night.
“And why did you want to go? At eleven-thirty? In the middle of a di
“That I can’t explain.” And I attempted to look simultaneously helpless and apologetic. We had, I hoped, crossed the border into the land of psychological complexity and unpredictability, a country where ignorance and bafflement were permitted.
“You’re seeing someone else, aren’t you?”
Seeing someone else? How on earth could that explain any of this? Why would seeing someone else necessitate bringing home a middle-aged woman, a teenaged punk and an American with a leather jacket and a Rod Stewart haircut? What would the story have been? But then, after reflection, I realized that Pe
In other circumstances, on other evenings, it would have been the right conclusion, too; I used to be pretty resourceful when I was being unfaithful to Cindy, even if I do say so myself. I once drove a new BMW into a wall, simply because I needed to explain a four-hour delay in getting home from work. Cindy came out into the street to inspect the crumpled bo
But then, anything—smashing up a new car, persuading Donald Rumsfeld to come to an Islington flat in the early hours of New Year’s Day—is easier than actually telling the truth. That look you get, the look which lets you see right through the eyes and down into the place where she keeps all the hurt and the rage and the loathing… Who wouldn’t go that extra yard to avoid it?
“Well?”
My delay in replying was a result of some pretty complicated mental arithmetic; I was trying to work out which of the two different sums gave me the smallest minus number. But, inevitably, the delay was interpreted as an admission of guilt.
“You fucking bastard.”
I was briefly tempted to point out that I was owed one, after the unfortunate incident with the line of coke and the TV chef, but that would only have served to delay her departure; more than anything I wanted to get drunk in my own home with my new friends. So I said nothing. Everyone else jumped when she slammed the door on the way out, but I knew it was coming.
Maureen
I was sick on the carpet outside the bathroom. Well, I say “carpet”—I was actually sick where the carpet should have been, but he didn’t have one. Which was just as well, because it was much easier to clean up afterwards. I’ve seen lots of those programmes where they decorate your house for you, and I’ve never understood why they always make you throw your carpets away, even good ones which still have a nice thick pile. But now I’m wondering whether they first of all decide whether the people who live in the house are sicker-uppers or not. A lot of younger people have the bare floorboards, I’ve noticed, and of course they tend to be sick on the floor more than older people, what with all the beer they drink and so on. And the drugs they take, too, nowadays, I suppose. (Do drugs make you sick? I’d think so, wouldn’t you?) And some of the young families in Islington don’t seem to go in for the carpets much, either. But you see that might be because babies are always being sick all over the place as well. So maybe Martin is a sicker-upper. Or maybe he just has a lot of friends who are sicker-uppers. Like me. I was sick because I’m not used to drinking, and also because I hadn’t had a thing to eat for more than a day. I was too nervous on New Year’s Eve to eat anything, and there didn’t seem to be an awful lot of point anyway. I didn’t even have any of Matty’s mush. What’s food for? It’s fuel, isn’t it? It keeps you going. And I didn’t really want to be kept going. Jumping off Toppers’ House with a full stomach would have seemed wasteful, like selling a car with a full tank of petrol. So I was dizzy even before we started drinking the whisky, because of the white wine at the party, and after I’d had a couple the room started spi
We were quiet for a little while after Pe
“You’re mad,” said Jess. “She’d feel all sorry for you if she found out how we’d met. You’d probably get a sympathy shag.”